


Lost & Found

by Janina



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark!Arya - Freeform, Dark!Jon, Dark!Tormund, F/M, Guns, Mobster AU, Modern Setting, Some Fluff, Violence, explicit - Freeform, the mob life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-23 10:01:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 44
Words: 95,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6113050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janina/pseuds/Janina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she realizes the husband she knew had departed, and she now had cold & hard mobster in his place, Sansa fakes her death and starts a new life in Wales. </p><p>And then Jon finds her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is still in its infancy, so the tags may not be complete just yet.  
> I'm terrified already of this story.

Sansa knew that if she was going to truly escape her husband, she’d have to do it right. She couldn’t simply run away. That left the opportunity open for him to find her, and find her he would. 

Jon Snow was at one time a sweet shy boy that hardly ever spoke up even when he should have. He used to be the sort that when a girl said “Go away” he went away. 

He was no longer that boy. He was a man now, and a ruthless one. 

He’d never been quite the same after her brother (and his best friend) and her father (the man who’d brought him in the family business) had been killed. He’d become the killer the business painstakingly molded one into.

For a while with her things had been different. Behind closed doors when it was just the two of them, her husband sometimes even wept in her arms. He lamented touching her with so much blood on his hands. She would tell him that no matter how much blood he had on his hands she would always love him. She’d loved him as kids when he got along better with her sister Arya than her, and she loved him as a teenager when she realized that Jon Snow was a hot older boy and found herself suddenly afraid to talk to him even though she so desperately wanted to. And then she loved him as an adult when they both, according to Robb (her brother, his best friend) “gotten their heads out of their asses” and finally got together. 

She’d known him all her life so if their courtship was a whirlwind consisting of dating for all of two months before moving in together and then getting engaged, for them it made sense. 

To Sansa, it was just a testament to how in love they were. How they were meant for each other. How he was her soul mate, her twin flame, her knight in shining armor. He was Spencer Tracy to her Katherine Hepburn, Bogie to her Bacall. 

She’d been so happy, and she thought that if the business didn’t change Jon the way it had her father and her brother, and if it didn’t take him the way it had taken them then she could pretend that part of their life didn’t exist. She could pretend that his sins were absolved by his confessions to her in the darkness. That his tears purified him just as her arms holding him so tight did. 

Slowly though, Jon started to change. He became harder. He always looked angry and on edge. He didn’t cry in her arms anymore. He didn’t talk to her anymore. He said he was protecting her. He said that she was the most important thing in his life and his enemies knew that. If she knew too much she became a target.

He told her she was a target already. 

When Myrcella Lannister had run into Sansa at the supermarket one afternoon and told her that she “should be taken care of”, Sansa hadn’t really put too much into it. Myrcella was young (twenty), and Sansa had seen her comment as flexing her Lannister muscle. Her words hadn’t carried any weight. 

Sandor Clegane, her guard (and her favorite one) didn’t see it that way and told Jon, who also didn’t see it that way. 

Jon had her killed. Later, it was discovered that Myrcella was pregnant. 

While Sansa had sobbed for the girl and for the child that would never be born, Jon hadn’t held her as she had held him in the past. He just watched her, eyes cold and dark and said, “She threatened you. I did what I had to do to protect you.”

Sansa hadn’t been able to forgive him for that. An anger had taken root inside of her borne out of despair and helplessness. She had lost Jon. The man she was married to was not a man she knew any longer. What was more – he wasn’t a man she wanted to know. 

She was done. 

And when she discovered she was pregnant herself, she was definitely done. Having killed Myrcella had made the fight between the Lannister and Stark organizations worse. Both were out for blood and now the Lannisters had grief to fuel them. 

Sansa had realized she didn’t have much time. Not if she wanted to leave. So, she had to make it quick, but she had to ensure that it would be difficult to look for her. 

Or make it where he wouldn’t think he had to look for her…

She had to fake her death. 

And so she planned it all out. She’d take the boat out. Alone. She did that sometimes; he would think nothing of it. She would purchase a spare raft and a motor, with cash, so that he wouldn’t suspect she’d simply gotten herself to the next town’s docks (and then the bus station, and then a train) as she’d planned to do. And, of course, she’d leave a note. A suicide note. She’d let him believe she’d drowned herself.

It twisted her heart and her stomach to think of it. And then she thought of Myrcella and her child. Thought of Jon not even reacting to Sansa’s grief over what he’d done, and telling her he had to do whatever it took to protect her. That just made her feel as though it was her fault. 

All her planning had worked. 

She was in California three days after motoring away from the boat. She was in Wales with a new name and had cut her long auburn hair to her chin and dyed it dark brown two days after that. 

Sadly, she’d lost the baby shortly after she’d arrived in Wales. She’d sobbed for the life that had been lost, and the fact that she’d not have something of Jon, something as pure as he’d once been. She convinced herself that it was for the best. It would have been hard to raise a child alone, and it would have been doubly hard to keep the child she’d conceived with Jon away from him. 

She had to continue on, forge this new life without Jon. She had her freedom now. She could live a normal life and put the mob behind her. Her heart broke for what had been before the mob had taken her brother and father and changed Jon. She knew he could be killed too, just as Robb and her father had been and Sansa didn’t have it in her to survive that. 

It was better this way. 

For three years she’d lived as Alayne Stone in Wales. She had a job teaching Year One students, and lived in a first floor flat that was spacious and had lots of light She had friends that didn’t ask too many questions and didn’t press her too much when she would shut down from time to time. 

And then one evening when she came home from the market all of that had come to grinding screeching halt with the appearance of Jon sitting at her kitchen table.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://photobucket.com/images/and%20here%20we%20go%20joker)   
> 

Sansa stared at Jon sitting at her kitchen table as though he was an apparition. It was surreal seeing him after so long and she wondered if he was a figment of her imagination. She had just been thinking of him the night before…had been getting depressed over him, wondering how he was and if he was still alive. 

Missing him. 

She held a bag of groceries in her hand and she didn’t drop it the way they would have done in the movies. No, she gripped it tight as if it was the only thing keeping her in this reality, because surely this couldn’t be real, right?

She’d been so careful. Efficient. Had thought of every detail. You didn’t grow up in the mob without picking up a few things. 

He looked almost the same. Perhaps three years wasn’t that long, but it was long enough to have wrought some changes, yet Jon looked the same. Just harder. A little bit older. And tired. He still had his shoulder length black curly hair. Sharp gray eyes that were now assessing her as though she wasn’t really anything of import. His full lips were pursed together and he still had his beard, though it appeared scruffy at the moment. She wondered if he hadn’t had a chance to shave since, well, he’d obviously been traveling, or if this was some new look. 

He wore dark jeans, boots, a black Henley top, and a pea coat she assumed was his was draped over one of the kitchen chairs she’d refurbished to make look shabby chic. 

“Hello, Sansa,” he said finally. 

“How did you find me?” she asked. 

“No hello then?” he asked with a chuckle that raised goose bumps on her skin. 

“Are you here to kill me?”

He laughed again. “No, Sansa, I’m not here to kill you.”

“Should there be a ‘yet’ at the end of that sentence? Do you plan to torture me first?”

He pushed the chair back and stood and Sansa moved closer to the kitchen knives on the counter. He actually looked surprised. 

Then Sandor stepped into the kitchen and Sansa dropped her bag of groceries and went for a knife. 

“Sansa, what the fuck are you doing?” Jon demanded. 

Sandor came over to her and plucked the knife she’d just grabbed right out of her hands. “Won’t be needing that, Little Bird,” he rumbled and pushed her away from the knives until she was standing in front of the sink. 

“What do you expect me to think after you’ve tracked me down?” she began. 

“You’re my _wife_ —”

“And I left you. I let you think I was dead.”

“I knew you weren’t. I would have known.”

“How?” she demanded incredulously. 

He lifted his chin. “You said once we were bonded. I would have felt it if you were gone.”

“Don’t tell me there’s some kind of romantic still left in you.”

“I’m not here to kill you, Sansa. Despite the fact that you did leave me and led me on a merry chase.” He came over to her and Sansa gripped the counter behind her and looked at him warily. “I did think you dead at first,” he whispered. “Would it make you happy to know I grieved for you?”

“Funny. I did the same for you.”

“Oh?”

“Before I left, when I realized the Jon I knew was dead.”

His expression went cold again. “I’m taking you home.”

“I _am_ home.”

“No. You’re. Not.” 

“You can’t possibly want me as your wife still. Not after how I left you. Just give me a divorce.”

“Never.”

“Oh, come on. It’s been three years. I’m sure there’s been women.”

His eyes narrowed. “Have there been men? Is there a man now?”

“There’s one—”

He didn’t let her finish. He grabbed her arm, his fingers digging into her skin, and yanked her away from the counter. He dragged her out of the kitchen and down the hall to her bedroom. He knew the layout of her flat. How long had he been there waiting for her?

He practically shoved her in her bedroom. “Pack. We’re going home.”

“I told you I’m not going. I’m not going back to that life. I’m not—”

“ _Pack_!” he roared. He was in her face looking utterly unhinged. Had he been close to losing it when he’d arrived, or had she just pushed him to the brink that easily? “Pack right now, Sansa, or so help me God I will pack for you and have Sandor hog tie you and put duct tape over your mouth to get you out the fucking goddamn door.” He leaned in so close their noses almost touched. “You know I’ll do it too.” No sooner had Jon finished then Sansa heard Sandor’s heavy tread in her doorway. 

Sansa blinked rapidly in an effort to stave off the tears that were threatening to come. The part of her that had missed him was at war with the part of her that was afraid of him. 

She moved away from him without a word when it was obvious he wasn’t going to budge. She went to her closet and dug in the back for her suitcase. 

“Who is he?” Jon asked. 

“What?” Sansa huffed as she yanked the suitcase out. 

“Who is the boy you’re seeing?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re exactly seeing—”

“ _Who_. Is he. Sansa?”

“Why? So you can make a little side-trip while you kidnap me back to the States and kill him?”

“It’s hardly kidnapping when you belong to me.”

“I don’t _belong_ to you, Jon.”

“Tell me his goddamn name, Sansa,” he said through clenched teeth. 

“Harry.” He looked at her expectantly and she sighed. “Tarly.”

Jon laughed, that dark laugh that she now wondered was just his fucking _laugh_. “Did you think you could really use your old high school boyfriend’s name and Sam’s last name and I wouldn’t figure it out?”

“No. I just really wanted you to get the point that I’m not telling you. Do you want me to pack, or do you want me to tell you about my boyfriend? Besides, if you managed to find me I’m assuming you got Sam to dig up all the goodies you could come up with about my life here. Wasn’t boyfriend one of those things he would have dug up?”

Jon didn’t reply, which just sparked Sansa’s curiosity even more. 

“Tormund should have finished with that deal now, boss,” Sandor said. 

Jon glared at Sansa who glared defiantly back. She wasn’t sure why she was so angry save for the fact that it was a convenient cover for her fear of what he was going to do to her. No one left the mob and lived. And no one, especially a woman, did what she did to her husband and got away with it. Any other mobster would have had her killed and yet Jon was forcing her back home. 

She didn’t, however, entertain any ideas that this was going to be a happy trip back home. No doubt he just wanted to find a way to punish her for what she’d done and she was on her guard wondering what he had planned for her. She let him believe she was dead. She betrayed him. There was no way he was going to let that go unpunished. 

He stormed from the room, digging his phone out of his pocket. Sandor looked at her. “The little bird is a wolf now.”

Sansa shrugged non-committal and began opening drawers and taking out what she needed. “What does he have planned for me?” she asked. 

“For you to take your rightful place at his side.”

“He can’t possibly want me anymore as his wife.”

“But you are his wife.”

Right. So, Sandor was still great at deflecting and giving absofuckinglutely nothing away.

“How did you find me?”

“I’ll let him tell you that story.”

“Is there anything you can tell me, Sandor?” she asked in exasperation as she looked at him. Once upon a time Sandor had been her personal guard. Her shield. Jon trusted Sandor with her life, and Sansa had trusted him as well. She’d even confided in him when she couldn’t seem to get anywhere with Jon. It had felt like a betrayal when Sandor had gone against her wishes and told Jon what Myrcella Lannister had said. Her blood was on his hands too. 

He pretended to ponder this and then looked away briefly before looking back at her and saying, “Yeah. Wales is a prissy as fuck."

Sansa rolled her eyes and threw a wad of underwear in her suitcase. “Oh, fuck you.”

“You done? The jet isn’t going to wait all night,” Jon said as he came back inside.

Sansa grabbed some shirts and some jeans and a couple pair of shoes and stuffed them in the suitcase. She zipped it up and sighed. “Now what?”

Jon grinned. “Sandor?”

Sandor pulled out a roll of duct tape from his back pocket along with zip ties and Sansa’s eyes went wide. Fear filled her. Was he going to kill her after all?

“We can’t take the chance that you’ll scream for help or fight us,” Jon explained. “So you get duct tape over your mouth and zip ties around your wrists. Once we’re on the jet, I’ll take them off.”

“You’re a barbaric piece of shit,” Sansa snapped just before Sandor put the duct tape over her mouth. 

Jon looked ready to murder her. “I’d watch it, Sansa. It’s a long flight home.”

Then he grabbed her suitcase while Sandor hoisted her over his shoulder as though she was nothing more than a sack of potatoes and off they went.


	3. Chapter 3

Sansa would have hoped that someone would have noticed how she’d been carried out of the house on the back of someone the size of a refrigerator, but no one did. Or if they had, they certainly hadn’t thought to call the authorities about it. 

So, there she was, sitting in the back of a truck with Jon just staring at her. She looked out the window, trying not to cry and wondering where she’d gone wrong. What had tipped him off that she was still alive?

The only thing he said in the whole trip to the airport was, “You’re getting rid of that brown shit in your hair.”

She refrained from flipping him off. 

Then onto the jet it was. It made her stomach roil, the smell of it. It had that new car smell inside and the scent had always made her nauseous. Once Sandor had settled her in her seat and buckled her in, he took her plastic ties off. She peeled off the duct tape on her own. 

Then, to her surprise, Jon placed a tin of Altoids on her lap. She looked at him with furrowed brow. What the hell…? 

“Don’t look so surprised,” he said as he sat across from her. He buckled himself in. “I know you get air sick sometimes, and I know the new car smell makes you sick. You think I forgot that you’d suck on Altoids to combat the nausea?”

Not forgot so much as just not care is actually what she thought. Okay, maybe forget too. 

“So you want to know how I found you,” he said. 

She looked at him. 

“It was a fluke, really,” Jon said. “Tormund was visiting a friend and saw you,” Jon said simply. “He followed you, watched you to make sure it was you, and took some photos. As soon as he told me and showed me the pictures, I came to get you.” 

So that was how he didn’t know about Willas. Not that they had been anything serious. They were co-workers and had always gone out with their other co-workers in a group. It was only just last week that he’d asked her out. They’d had dinner and lunch so far. Tormund must have not seen them. 

_Of all the dumb luck…_

“You covered your tracks well,” he murmured. “You weren’t fucking around.”

Sansa kept her mouth shut. He still didn’t know about the baby and Sansa wasn’t sure when or even if she should tell him. It wasn’t as though their marriage hadn’t been falling apart as it was before that. 

“Are you going to speak? You can now.”

Sansa looked at him and then out the window. The jet jerked forward – or backward in her case – and she gripped the handles of the seat. She had never did flying all that well. 

“You’re fine, Sansa. This jet is brand new,” Jon said softly. 

“And the pilot?” she asked hoarsely.

He smiled. “He got me here didn’t he?”

Sansa looked back out the window. She didn’t know what to say. What to think. It’d been three years. The man with her might as well be a stranger to her now. He’d been turning into one before she’d left as it was. How had he changed in three years? Had he gotten worse? Better? What did he expect of her? Of them? There wasn’t even a them anymore. 

“What are you thinking?” he asked. 

She swallowed and looked at him. “What do you want of me?”

“Why, I want my wife, Sansa,” he said sardonically. “What else would I want? You’ll be on my arm when we go out, you’ll be at my dinner table, and you’ll be in my bed.”

She started at that last part and looked at him sharply. 

He leaned forward, his eyes cold again. “You’re. My. Wife. And you. Belong. To me.”

She clutched the arm rests tighter and looked out the window as it gained speed and then eventually lifted off. 

“Who was the guy?” he asked softly. 

“He was someone I worked with,” she murmured. “We were friends and only went out a couple times. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Was he the only one?”

She looked at him. “How many women have there been?”

He looked away and that answered that. There’d been a lot. Sansa shoved down the jealousy, something she had no right at all to feel. Something she also didn’t want to feel. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t thought of it over the course of the past few years either. There were times when it was all she could think about and it took a lot of work and talking herself down off the ledge to not focus on it and not sink into a tidal pool of depression thinking of Jon falling in love with another woman. 

Oh, God. What if he wanted her at his table and in his bed and on his arm, but still planned to carry on with whomever he was with? It wasn’t unheard of in the business. While she knew extramarital affairs was something her father hadn’t engaged in, there were plenty others that did. Was Jon going to be one of them? Was that how he was going to punish her?

“So how unwelcome will I actually be when I get to Winterfell?” she finally asked. 

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. 

“How can I not? I can’t imagine any of your men will be thrilled with me.”

“They were never just my men, Sansa. They were – and are – yours too. They all knew that your protection came first before anything else going on.”

“Arya must hate me even more now,” Sansa murmured. Her sister was more involved than most women in the Stark organization. It had always been a source is discomfort for Sansa. Not just because this was her sister, but because she had always been a little jealous too. There was only a few years between them with Arya being the youngest at twenty-five, and she had pushed her way into the organization while Sansa had been just fine with keeping out of it. Yet, at the same time, it had always made her a bit resentful as though Arya was able to handle things that everyone knew Sansa could not. 

“Can you blame her?” Jon asked. “She’s your sister and you let her think you were dead, too.”

“Did she believe that I was or was that just you that didn’t?”

“She thought I was crazy,” he admitted. 

She looked back out the window again and didn’t say anything more. Jon watched her, finding himself unable to keep his eyes off her. As much as he’d believed that she hadn’t really been dead, it was still three years of dead end upon dead end. There had been times when his men had staged “interventions”, trying to get him to stop looking for her and accept the fact that she was dead. He just couldn’t. And even though it turned out that he was right, it still felt as though she was a ghost, or a figment of his imagination and at any minute she was going to disappear. 

He looked over at Sandor whom he’d noticed hadn’t been able to look away from Sansa much either. In the beginning it had bothered him, the way Sandor looked after Sansa and the way Sansa often relied on Sandor, but Jon had learned that it was a benefit to have someone care about her well-being and not just because it was his job to, but because he genuinely cared. 

Sandor looked over at Jon and nodded and then looked away. Jon sighed and looked over at Sansa who just looked completely wrecked – exhausted and stressed. _Well, good,_ he thought. _After all she’s put me through, she deserves to be._


	4. Chapter 4

_**Three Years Earlier** _

_She wouldn't let him make love to her. Shit, she barely let him touch her. That was all Jon could think about all day long. He'd woken in want of his wife, and for once didn't have to rush off anywhere. He had time to spend loving Sansa the way he wanted to. It had been a while since they'd connected - really connected - in the bedroom. Or at all, really._

_He'd felt her pulling away from him over the past month and he didn't like it. It hurt. It made him look at his own behavior and to what had caused it. He didn't have to guess; he knew. It was Myrcella Lannister's death. Jon wished he knew how else to explain to Sansa that Myrcella Lannister might have been popping off at the mouth, but with the history between the Starks and the Lannisters, Jon couldn't take the chance. Besides, Myrcella Lannister was a Cersei in the making, and Cersei was just as ruthless as the rest of the Lannister clan. It was Cersei that had helped get Ned Stark killed after her husband had died and the war between the Lannisters and Starks had begun._

_So no, Jon wasn't about to let Myrcella's comment go. He was sorry, truly sorry, that she had been pregnant, but when he thought of something happening to Sansa he started to shake. She was his weakness and his enemies knew the best way to get to him was through her. Plus, Jon had promised Robb and Ned that he would take care of Sansa when they wed, and he was a man of his word. Besides, she was the love of his life and if something happened to Sansa there would be nothing left of him._

_The more he felt his humanity slip away, the more he needed Sansa to anchor him back. To remind him who he was. To love him the only way she knew how. She melted the ice he often felt he wore as armor day in and day out, and lately he'd allowed himself to become even more hardened, even more frozen. After Theon Greyjoy had turned on them and had gotten Robb killed, Jon had realized that in this job, one had to be on guard at all times and trusting others wasn’t a luxury. It was the only way to survive in a job where threats were a constant and you were constantly looking over your shoulder._

_So when he had rolled over in bed that morning and sidled up against Sansa's back and began nuzzling at her neck, his hand laying possessively over her stomach, and he'd felt her stiffen, he'd been hurt. "Sansa?" he rumbled in her ear. "Are you okay?"_

_She pushed away from him and got out of bed. "I think I'm going to take the boat out for a couple hours and just relax today."_

_He didn't know how to ask her to come back to bed and let him make love to her. Obviously it wasn't what she wanted and she had to know that's what he'd been angling for. Instead, he nodded and swallowed his hurt. "Sure. Just don't go too far out."_

_She bristled at that. “I know how to take care of myself on the boat, Jon.”_

_“Yes, I know, but that doesn’t mean something couldn’t happen.”_

_She walked off without a word to the bathroom and Jon sighed._

_They got ready for their day in silence and when it was time for them to part ways, Jon had taken her in his arms and kissed her. Sansa had hugged him tightly, much tighter than usual, and when he pulled away and left, she looked ready to cry._

When Jon leaned over Sansa and said her name, she jerked awake and looked up at him with eyes wide with fright. He tried not to let that bother him. Is that why she’d done what she did? Had he scared her? Or was this fear borne out of not knowing what he had in store for her now that he’d found her? Did she think he was really going to kill her? Torture her? 

What had become of them that she’d felt her only recourse was to fake her death? What had become of her that she’d go to such lengths to escape? What had become of him? He’d known they hadn’t been in a good place but he never would have guessed that she was at the point where she was done with him completely. 

“We’re here,” he said gruffly. 

“I slept the whole time?” she asked. He nodded. She pushed the blanket she had off of her and looked at him curiously. “You put this on me?”

“I keep forgetting that monsters don’t do stuff like that,” he muttered. 

She ignored his comment and looked up at him. “Are you going to zip tie me again?”

“Do you think I need to?”

“I didn’t think you had to the first time.”

He snorted. She glared at him. 

“Ready?” Sandor asked. 

“Can I use the bathroom first?” Sansa asked. 

“I’ll show you where it is,” Jon said. 

“Afraid I’ll leap out the cockpit or something?” she asked. 

“You’re just going to have to get used to being watched and monitored, Sansa,” Jon told her as he led her down to the bathroom. “And if you find that unfair, I’d like to take this moment to remind you that you brought it on yourself with your little stunt.”

“Little?” she asked with an arched brow. 

Jon shoved the door to the bathroom open and pushed her inside. “Make it quick.”

_Jon leapt onto the Sea Ray Cruiser with Sandor and Tormund following behind him. “Sansa!” he called out. He waited a beat, thinking she’d pop up from down below but she didn’t. He made his way down the stairs to see if she was down below taking a nap and had just lost track of time and called out for her again._

_When he’d called her after leaving the warehouse to see if she was back yet from her trip out on the water, and tell her that he was heading home and wanted to take her out to dinner, he’d been a bit concerned when she didn’t answer her phone._

_Then he called again thinking maybe she just didn’t hear it._

_He called a third time. Then a fourth._

_Still no answer._

_Sandor nodded toward him. “What’s wrong?”_

_“Sansa’s not answering her phone,” Jon muttered._

_“She’s probably in the water,” Sandor said. “She spends more time swimming than actually in the boat.”_

_Jon nodded absently, his fingers drumming on the car door while Tormund drove them back to the house._

_It was true that Sansa did lose track of time when she went out on the water. It was the one of the few times she was allowed true freedom and she coveted it. Any other time and she would have Sandor with her, but when she went out on the boat, she went alone._

_Their home was nestled among surrounding homes in a cove that was part of the Westeros River. Among their neighbors was Sandor, Sam, and Arya. For their enemies to attempt to attack them via the water was to literally put themselves in the position of sitting duck._

_Jon didn’t make her take a guard with her when she went out, and she never went out very far either. But even if she had, having grown up in the house that was now hers and Jon’s, Sansa had been taught at a young age how to handle a boat and she was a superb swimmer._

_When Jon returned home, he called the restaurant he wanted to take Sansa to that night and tried calling her again. This time it went to voicemail._

_He was worried now._

_“Get the boat ready, Tormund,” Jon told his friend and associate. “We’re going to look for Sansa.”_

_“Still not answering her phone?” Sandor asked._

_Jon shook his head. “No.” He didn’t say that he had a bad feeling now. He didn’t want to give into it. He just had to think clearly and not let emotion cloud his judgment. Worry wasn’t going to make Sansa walk through the door._

_When Sandor pulled out his phone to presumably try calling Sansa himself, Jon glared at him. Sandor ignored him and headed outside._

_“Sansa!” Jon called out again and ducked into the small room that was their bedroom when they came out together to get away from things._

_“Boss!” he heard Sandor shout._

_Jon barreled up the stairs. When Sandor sounded worried, Jon knew it was time to truly worry. Sandor and Tormund looked grim when Jon arrived on the deck. “What?” he asked impatiently. “What is it?”_

_Sandor thrust a piece of paper forward and walked away. Tormund stood there like a sentinel watching Jon like a hawk._

_Jon’s hand began to shake as he looked down at the paper and began to read Sansa’s flowery scrawl._

The closer they got to the house, the more fidgety Sansa got. Jon knew this to mean she was nervous. Good. She should be after what she did. It hadn’t just been him that she’d left, but their family. 

Arya had been beyond livid when Tormund had dropped the ball that Sansa was alive and well and living in Wales. Sam had quickly done his research. Alayne Stone had arrived in Wales about a week after Sansa had “died”. She’d moved once, but only across town. 

She had a home. A job. Friends. She had a life, an entire **life.**

_Dear Jon,_

_I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live this life any longer. It’s too much and I’m tired._

_Please try to find happiness. Please be safe. Please take care of yourself._

_I will love you always,_

_Sansa_

Jon wondered for the millionth time since she’d been discovered that if she had somehow possessed the ability to look into the future and see how faking her death had utterly destroyed him, would she have done it?

She looked ready to leap out of her skin when they got the driveway. She looked at Jon. “Is this really what you want?”

“Since when do you care what I want?”

She pursed her lips together and looked at him archly. “I guess that makes us even then.”

When the car stopped, Jon climbed out and then reached in and yanked Sansa out of the car. “You’re hurting me!” she exclaimed as she tried to dig her heels into the pavement of the driveway and dislodge her arm from his grasp. 

Jon’s hands tightened instead of loosening and he leaned in and hissed, “I. Don’t. Care.”

“Boss,” Sandor said and Jon looked at him, daring him to say something. 

Sandor held up his hands and they continued on to the house. 

_It was growing dark and Jon’s teeth were chattering. Tormund yelled from the deck of the boat that he wasn’t going to find her body down there. They needed equipment to do that._

_They needed the cops for this one._

_Jon couldn’t do anything else but give up. Sandor, who he’d forced to help him, followed him back onto the boat. Standing on the boat, dripping wet and cold, with Sansa’s note still clutched in Tormund’s hands, Jon felt the familiar gut wrenching pain that accompanied loss of a loved one. Only this was worse. Much worse. This wasn’t the same as when Ned and Robb had been killed though that pain had been severe. No, this felt as though someone was ripping his guts out. Slowly. He felt as though his soul was being stripped from him._

_He bent over and roared into the dusky night as though the sound of his pain could resurrect Sansa from the watery depths. He couldn’t stop. He thought maybe it would help, but it didn’t. As he shattered right before Sandor and Tormund, helplessness slipped in. Then misery, and then rage. Finally, when his voice cracked and nothing more came out, Jon folded over in on himself._

_And then he broke._

Arya and Tormund were there to greet them when Jon, Sansa, and Sandor finally made it in the house. Sansa yanked her arm free from Jon and this time he let her go. 

Arya marched up to her sister, her gray eyes burning like hot coals. The baby face she hadn’t ever really been able to dispel no matter how old she got was twisted into sheer rage. 

Sansa watched her sister warily as she approached and braced herself. She wasn’t surprised when the blow came; only surprised that Arya had only smacked her and not punched her as she’d expected.


	5. Chapter 5

Sansa heard Sandor growl behind her, which gave her some home that she was not _completely_ alone in this mess. Arya shifted her glare to Sandor and then back to Sansa. Sansa didn’t bother to look at Jon to see his reaction to Sandor. Instead, she moved her jaw a bit and tried to ignore the sting on her cheek from Arya’s slap. 

“No welcome home banner?” she asked. It was in poor taste to goad her sister – not to mention Jon – but she felt backed into a corner. No, that wasn’t right. She _was_ backed into a corner. Gone were the days when she cowered and whimpered in that corner. Now she came out swinging, especially since she was still not quite sure about what her fate was to be here. 

“How could you let us think you were dead?” Arya shouted. “How could you do that to Jon? To me? To all of us?”

“You mean you actually cared that I was dead? I thought I was just a waste of space?” Sansa asked. 

Arya heaved a shuddering breath. “You’re still my sister.”

“And you care insomuch as you think you’re supposed to because we’re blood,” Sansa told her. “Don’t pretend we had some great relationship, Arya.” _Besides, didn’t my being out of the way make it easier for you to have your shot with Jon?_ she thought, but didn’t say out loud. She wanted to say it though, and if Arya thought to push the matter by beginning to spout off about family and sisterly bonds or some such shit, she just might. 

She’d figured out Arya’s feelings for Jon around the time she and Jon had started dating, and the already precarious relationship between she and Arya had shifted into utter loathing from Arya. 

Arya had never said her feelings for Jon aloud to Sansa or to Jon, but it hadn’t been hard to figure out. For a time, Sansa had thought perhaps she should have stepped aside and let Jon make the choice, but she’d been in love with him and she knew that Jon loved her. Plus, Jon had always treated Arya like one of his mates, but in an older brother kind of way. By the time it was clear to Sansa what Arya felt for Jon, she and Jon were already devoted to one another. 

It was something that would get in Sansa’s head on those bad days she had in Wales. The idea of Jon and Arya together. It just seemed natural to her that Jon would turn to Arya. Sansa could see it happening in her head so clearly, and it would be all she could think about. It would drive her mad. She’d tell herself that she was the one that had left. She had released not only herself from the marriage, but him too. Of the two, Arya was better suited to Jon than Sansa was and towards the end, when Sansa had begun to plan leaving, they made more sense to her than she and Jon did. 

That hadn’t made it hurt any less. 

Arya was tougher. Braver. She could fight, shoot a gun, and definitely hold her own. She was a warrior. Sansa was not. She was always protected and sheltered, even growing up she had been. She’d never put herself in the thick of anything the way Arya had, and she supposed that was partly her fault then for not being involved. 

Still, it pissed Sansa off that Arya could give one shit about her all of a sudden. 

Their last conversation before Sansa had left had been Arya yelling at her for being a sniveling weak cow over Myrcella Lannister. “You’re a waste of space, Sansa, you always have been,” Arya had spat at her. 

Now, her sister stormed off and Jon started after her. _Hmmm….._

Sansa looked at Tormund who nodded once to her and stalked off. 

“Come on, Little Bird,” Sandor said softly. “Let me take you to your room.”

“Oh, does this mean I get my own?” Sansa asked. 

“No. You’ll be with your husband. He said as much didn’t he?”

“No. I won’t be sleeping with him. I’ll find a guest room.”

“Sansa, that’s not what he wants. Jon said—”

“I don’t care what he wants,” she snapped. “I’m here, aren’t I? Let that be enough for Christ’s sake.” 

With that she stormed off to find a bedroom to sleep in. 

xxxxxxxxxx

“Arya, stop,” Jon said before Arya stormed outside to the deck. 

Arya stopped, her gray eyes flashing as she turned and looked at Jon. “How can she be so…so fucking _glib_?”

Jon heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead. God, he was tired. He hadn’t slept in…he couldn’t remember anymore he was so tired. He’d been too anxious on the trip out to get Sansa, to see Sansa after so long…

And then he’d been too wound up on the flight back to sleep. All he’d been able to do was watch her sleep and think about how things had been before Myrcella. Before Ned and Robb, when he’d been able to devote more time to Sansa. 

And now they were home and his body was craving rest while at the same time being so wound up with having Sansa back. She hadn’t disappeared yet. She was here. She was alive. He could reach out and touch her. 

And he wanted to. 

But Goddammit, he was also so fucking angry with her. And so fucking hurt, too. She’d left him. _Left. Him._ She’d wanted him to think she was dead. How was he supposed to feel learning that? When Tormund had first told him and showed him the pictures he’d felt euphoria. Relief. His Sansa was alive! 

But she wanted him to think her dead. She’d planned her escape. She had done it so well, too. If he hadn’t been so pissed at her he would have been impressed. He wanted his wife back but she hadn’t wanted to be found. She had wanted him to think there was nothing of her to find.

Tormund had thought it best to let her go. 

“She left you, Jon,” Tormund had told him. “She wanted you to think she was dead. Let her go. Let her be dead.”

He couldn’t though. He couldn’t let her go now that he knew she was alive. Now that he knew where she was and he could just go and bring her back. She was his _wife_. He’d been so terrified that Tormund would tell him that he’d seen her with some guy. Or, worse, show him a picture of her with one. He hadn’t. And if Tormund lied to him about that to spare him, then Jon was willing to let him. 

Perhaps part of it was his pride. The fact that she’d pulled one over him so fucking well and made a fool out of him. She’d betrayed him in the worst way letting him think her dead. 

There was also the part that was in love with her still, too. This was Sansa Stark. The love of his fucking life. He’d been in love with her for so long he felt as though he’d been born already in love with her. 

Let her go? No. She was his. 

“Have you slept at all?” Arya asked and laid a hand gently on his arm. 

Jon moved away from her touch, ignoring the hurt that passed over her features. “I haven’t been able to,” he said hoarsely. He had the sneaking suspicion that he just might break down now that he was home and Sansa was here. She was _here_. 

“Maybe you should,” Arya said softly. “Get some sleep and the rest can be sorted out in the morning.”

“I don’t even know what time it is right now,” Jon muttered. 

“It’s eight, and you’ve had a long twenty-four hours.”

“Sansa must still be exhausted,” he muttered, “though she did sleep on the plane.”

“How can you still love her after what she did?” Arya asked bluntly, angrily.

Jon wanted to tell her all that he’d already thought – because he felt as though he was born loving her. She was the love of his life and there was no changing that. If they could find some way to get through this…he just didn’t know how. There was her anger at him to contend with, the fact that she hadn’t wanted to be found and he’d forced her home, and him and his anger and his hurt…

“One day when you really love someone you’ll understand,” he said. 

And with that, Arya stormed off. This time, Jon let her go. 

xxxxxxxxx

Sansa sat on the bed in one of the guest rooms on the second floor and stared down at the cream colored carpeting. It looked like it had been recently vacuumed; there were lines in the carpet. It smelled a bit musty though and she thought she should open a window. 

Sandor came in with her suitcase and dropped it on the floor. He looked down at her, arms folded across his broad chest. “You need anything?” he asked. 

“A prayer?”

“You know I don’t believe in that shit.”

“I was being facetious.”

He snorted. “You grew fangs, Little Bird.”

“Did I? I don’t feel like it right now. I feel rather…defeated.”

“Imagine how we felt when you left,” Sandor said softly. “Except worse. Much worse.”

Sansa looked up at him. “I wanted to tell you, Sandor, I just couldn’t.”

Whatever Sandor was going to say was cut off by Jon storming into the bedroom. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he barked at her. 

Sansa dug her hands into the floral duvet and balled it in her fists. “I’m not sleeping in your bed, Jon.”

He grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. He got in her face and said, “ _Our_ bed. And yes you fucking are.” She caught Sandor’s look somewhere between a wince and ‘I-told-you-so’, as Jon pulled her out of the room. She dug her heels in, in the hallway and managed to free herself. 

“You can’t just drag me around like some kind of rag doll!” she shouted at him. “You can’t push me and shove me and pull me this way and that like I’m taffy.”

“Then you should do what I ask the first time instead of openly defying me,” he snarled. 

“And you wonder why I left you,” she snarled back. 

He was going to kill her; she was sure of it. She started to back away from him and he grabbed her again. Then released her just as quickly. “Get in our bedroom, Sansa,” he said, his voice low and scarily calm. It was the voice she heard him use with his enemies. It was the voice she had never wanted him to use on her. “Go now or I will drag you in there.”

She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders and began walking down the hall as regally and with as much dignity as she could manage.


	6. Chapter 6

Jon headed right into the bathroom as soon as they got to the bedroom. Sandor was behind Sansa with her suitcase and he placed it on the bed and looked at her. “Please try not to piss him off any more tonight.”

“Just tonight?” she asked. 

Sandor shot her a look. She shrugged and looked around the bedroom. It didn’t look the way she’d left it, not that she’d expected it to stay the same. Where the walls had once been a cream color with pictures of landscapes on the wall, now they were bare and painted slate gray. The shabby chic furniture she’d had in the room had been replaced by sleek mahogany that made everything look…dark. And cold. 

Kind of like the man who inhabited the room. 

“Sansa—” Sandor began, but then stopped when the door to the bathroom opened and Jon came out wearing sweatpants and no shirt. 

Sansa refused to look at his naked torso. She did not want to react to the sight of him like this. He’d always had an incredible body and she’d always found him hot, not to mention sexy. It used to turn her on when he’d get that certain look in his eyes and stalk her as though she was prey. 

It wasn’t so much fun now that she was _actually_ his prey – and not in the fun way. 

She wrapped her arms around herself. 

“You can go now, Sandor,” Jon said. “Sansa, change.”

Sansa affected a bright smile when she looked at him. “How about ‘Sansa, wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you changed? Please, use my bathroom and wash up if you’d like’.”

Jon looked ready to throttle her, which was how he’d pretty much looked at her since she’d seen him sitting at her kitchen table in Wales. The kitchen table she’d found and refurbished along with the chairs. She’d loved her apartment in Wales, dammit. She was missing it pretty hard right now. 

“Our bathroom,” he corrected her and then looked darkly at Sandor. “Didn’t I tell you to leave?” 

Sandor looked reluctant and then resigned as he sighed, nodded, and then left. He closed the door behind him. 

Sansa looked towards the door longingly. She wanted Sandor to come back. She felt safer with him there. 

“Sansa!” Jon barked. She snapped her head in his direction. He clenched his jaw, seemed to struggle to contain whatever eruption was bubbling within him and then sighed and said quietly, “Change…please.” 

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if that was so hard, but she’d been pushing her luck as it was and decided it was best to take that bit of politeness (no matter how he’d struggled with it) and do as he asked. 

She went to her suitcase first and opened it. Rifling through she dug out what she needed and stood. Jon was still standing there, watching her. 

“What?” she asked somewhat defensively. “Afraid I packed a weapon?”

“I wasn’t thinking that actually, but now I am.”

She snorted. “I didn’t pack a weapon.” She held up her pajamas and a change of underwear. “You can check if you don’t believe me.”

She was surprised when he actually did. Should she have been surprised by that? She wasn’t certain. Sure, she’d faked her death but doing him physical harm? She didn’t want Jon dead. By anyone’s hand, but least of all hers. 

He nodded curtly to her and passed her clothes back. She just looked at him in bewilderment. “You can’t really fault me for not trusting you,” he said. “You dealt me the mother of all lies in order to leave me. You haven’t exactly been compliant since I found you.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Can you really blame me for that?! You haven’t exactly been a peach.”

He turned around and headed for the bed. Right then. Discussion over. 

Sansa hurried to the bathroom as fear of what he had in store for her tonight making her wonder if she could possibly lock herself in there. He couldn’t possibly expect sex, could he? He couldn’t. Jon was many things, but he wasn’t a rapist. Yes he wanted her in his bed and that had certain connotations, but he couldn’t mean to actually force her…could he?

She stayed in the shower until the water went cold. And then she took her time toweling off and changing (pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, the least sexy thing ever). She hoped Jon would be asleep when she came out. Her hands started to shake when she exited and she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him sitting at the end of the bed with his head down as if in prayer. He looked up at her, his expression unreadable. 

“Took you long enough,” he said gruffly. 

Her traitorous mind went to their wedding night when she’d come out of the bathroom after having changed into lingerie she’d selected special for him that night. Jon had been waiting for her when she’d emerged, sitting at the edge of their hotel room and looking nervous. She remembered laughing at him for that. 

“We’ve done it before, Jon,” she’d reminded him “A lot. Remember?”

He’d gathered her close and smiled down at her. “I know, but this is our wedding night, Sansa. How many of these do you think we’ll get?”

“One more.”

He’d arched a brow at her and she’d giggled. “When we renew our vows in ten years,” she’d told him. 

He’d beamed at her then and pulled her in for a heated kiss that had been a prelude for what was to come. 

She felt an ache in her chest at the memory of that night. This was such a stark contrast to then and she shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. 

Jon stood and Sansa sucked in a breath. He came over to her and reached out and Sansa forced herself not to flinch. She didn’t want to show him fear though like any predator he could probably smell it wafting off of her. 

“I’ve always loved your hair,” he said softly. “It was like fire across my pillow.”

She looked at him, confused by his sudden soft demeanor as he fingered the strands between his fingers. He looked at her, dropping the strands he’d been touching. “Let’s go to bed.”

“How?” she asked, cursing herself for her wobbly voice. 

He frowned. “What?”

“How do you want…me?”

He looked at her incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“You said you wanted me in your bed. I took that to mean—”

“Yeah, I can guess what you thought I meant,” he snapped. “I’m not going to rape you, Sansa. Exactly how much of a monster do you think I am?”

“How much?” she asked, her temper flaring. “Allow me to enumerate the many ways in which I think you are a monster. You broke into my flat—”

“What did you think I was going to do? Call first to make sure it was okay that I pop over for a visit?”

“You put zip ties on me and duct tape—”

“Technically that was Sandor who did that.”

“And you took me out of my home—”

Jon grabbed her by the arms and shook her. “That was not your home! _This_ is your home! Do you not remember that once I was your home?”

“You’re so angry with me for leaving you, but you left me first, Jon!”

“Left me? Sansa, _you made me think you were dead_! Do you have any idea what that did to me to think I pushed the love of my life to _suicide_? I tried to find your body. I called the fucking cops for help me! I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind—” He broke off when his voice cracked. He pulled her close to him, his eyes dark with rage and something else she couldn’t define. “I wanted to die with you,” he whispered. 

It wasn’t easy to hear that. How could it be? She started to cry, thinking of him being so upset that he would contemplate killing himself. She wanted to say she was sorry but she knew at this juncture it would just sound false and empty. She’d done what she thought was right. It wasn’t as if he would have ever given her a divorce. A man that killed a young girl for making a “threat” against her wouldn’t grant her a divorce. Besides, one didn’t divorce the mob. That’s not it worked. Even the little she did know was too much. If they’d divorced and Jon had ever been arrested and taken to trial, she would have been forced to testify against him…not to mention everyone else.

“Tormund had to stop me,” Jon rasped. “He watched me for days. While you were making a pretty little life for yourself in Wales, I wanted to join you in what I thought was your watery grave.”

She pushed away from him. “Stop!”

“Stop what? Stop telling you what I went through? Did you forget that you left behind a husband who loved you? Who would have died for you?!?”

“You left me first!” she shouted at him. “I couldn’t talk to you. I couldn’t reach you. You looked at me the way Arya always did – like I was just a naïve stupid girl. This was never my life; I was just unlucky enough to have been born into it. This is your life. This is Arya’s life. This was never mine and you know that.”

“Then why the fuck did you marry me?!”

“Because I loved you. I loved you and I didn’t think I could live without you!”

“And now you have,” he said hoarsely. “And you were fine, weren’t you? You didn’t…did you even think of me?”

“Of course I did,” she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Every day.”

“Then why, Sansa? Make me understand how you could that.”

She shook her head, pursing her lips together tightly. 

“Tell me,” he growled. 

She shook her head again and he grabbed her again, his fingers digging into her skin. “Tell me, damn you.” When she didn’t speak, he shook her. “Tell me!”

“I was pregnant!” she exclaimed and shoved him away. “I was pregnant and I wasn’t going to bring a child into this life and into this home with a father who thought nothing of killing a young girl. You weren’t going to teach my child how to be a murderer.”

He looked at her as though she’d struck him. His eyes were wide, his mouth fell open. “You – you were pregnant?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I lost it shortly after I got to Wales.”

She watched as his expression went from awe to devastated and then furious. _This is it_ , she thought. _This is when he kills me_. He took a step toward her and she curled her hands into fists, ready to defend herself. He noticed. “God damn you to hell,” he said through clenched teeth and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. 

Shaking like a leaf, Sansa’s only thought was: _I need to get the fuck out of here._

She slipped out the door and started to make her way down the hall when Tormund stepped in front of her.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some characterizations are going to be a bit different. Maybe a little off in some ways. Arya, for example, is one that is going to be problematic in this fic. 
> 
> This fic kind of scared me to start because I wanted to challenge myself a bit and write something a bit grittier than usual. There may be things that happen that you're not going to like, and all I'm asking is that you trust me. I'll get us there.   
> [](http://photobucket.com/images/friends%20group%20hug)

“Going somewhere?” Tormund asked, his cold blue eyes piercing her. 

Sansa swallowed hard. At one time Tormund had been a friend. Now he no doubt hated her along with everyone else. 

“I—I was just going to get something to drink.”

His eyes narrowed and his head tilted to the side. “Were you now?”

Fuck this, she thought. She folded her arms across her chest. “Is there something you want to say to me, Tormund?” She leaned forward. “I would remind you though that despite the fact that Jon and I are not exactly ‘getting along’ he would kill you if you disrespected me. Besides, he’s doing just fine on his own in that department.”

“You don’t deserve respect after what you did,” Tormund sneered. “Prancing about in Wales as though you’d done nothing wrong. As if you hadn’t nearly killed Jon.”

“I’m pretty sure I wasn’t prancing. I don’t prance.”

“You _bitch_ ,” Tormund growled. 

“That seems to be the consensus.”

“If you were my woman I’d have you run through for what you did.”

“Well, it’s still early yet, Tormund, and I’m sure Jon would like the honor of running me through. You don’t really want to take that away from him, do you?”

Tormund opened his mouth to speak when Sandor entered the hallway and came up behind Tormund. “What’s going on in here?” he asked, looking from Tormund to Sansa. 

“Oh, Tormund just wanted to give me a nice welcome home while I was on my way to get a glass of water,” Sansa told Sandor without moving her gaze from Tormund. “Right, Tormund?”

Tormund grunted and shoved past her, causing Sansa to stumble back. “Oh, come on Tormund,” she called after him. “Don’t go away mad!”

He ignored her and kept going and Sansa jumped when Sandor clamped a hand down on her shoulder. “Little Bird, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Forget it.”

“What did he say to you?” Sandor demanded. 

“Why – so you can have someone else killed?” she snapped. 

Sandor’s expression hardened and Sansa sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” he said with a snort. 

“No, you’re right, I’m not.”

“Myrcella Lannister was a bitch just like her mother. If you were on fire she wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help you. In fact, she probably would have been the one to _set_ you on fire. She was a cross between Cersei and your bitch sister. What she said to you was not an idle threat, Sansa. The way to take Jon down was to take you down first, and they knew that.”

“I still maintain he was losing his fucking mind and you didn’t help by telling him what she said. Killing more people wasn’t going to help him, Sandor.”

“Neither was faking your goddamn death, Sansa!” Sandor snarled. “You thought he was losing his grip then? You should have seen what happened after you left.”

“Tell me,” she whispered. “What happened?”

“He gave them yet another reason to want him dead.”

She furrowed her brow. “How?”

“Once he got it in his head that you weren’t dead, he landed on the next possible outcome: you’d been kidnapped by the Lannisters. So he took Jaime Lannister captive and threatened to kill him if Jaime didn’t tell him where you were. Jaime, with the help of Tyrion, convinced him that you were not being held hostage and made the mistake of making the remark that suicide probably seemed like a more viable option for you than staying married to Jon…”

Sansa’s arms fell to her sides. “And then what?”

“Jon cut off Jaime’s hand.”

Sansa sucked in a sharp breath and put her hand to her forehead. “Oh my God.”

“Cersei was out for blood after that. Somehow Tyrion managed to get her under control, but just barely. She had one of Jon’s warehouses blown up and he escaped by the skin of his teeth. So you see, Sansa, shit went on here. Your leaving had a ripple effect.”

“No, you’re not going to pin this all on me,” she said with an emphatic shake of her head. “He had Myrcella Lannister killed. Don’t think for one second they weren’t planning a retaliation after that. And who do you think they were going to come for? _Me_. Because _I’m_ the one she made that ‘threat’ to. You don’t think I thought of all that already, Sandor? They were gearing up for it and there was no way in hell I was going to put me and my child in the middle of a war zone. Kind of ironic, really that he made me target when he was trying to eliminate the threat against me.”

Sandor’s expression cleared and he looked down at her in wonder. “Little Bird, you…you were…?”

She nodded, tears stinging her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered. “I lost it after I got to Wales.” She heaved a deep sigh and looked away from him in an attempt to gather her wits about her. She gestured down the hall. “Jon and I fought – shocker – and he knows now. I thought he was going to kill me.”

Sandor shook his head. “He’s not going to kill you, Little Bird.”

“Your faith in him is truly something, but I’ve no such faith. Tormund hates me, Arya hates me even more— if such a thing is possible…” She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “Do you hate me too, Sandor?”

His expression softened even more. He looked sad now. He shook his head and reached out to her. Sansa’s eyes widened and Sandor dropped his hand before making contact. He shook his head. “No, Little Bird,” he said softly. “I don’t hate you.”

“I can’t stay here. I’m in enemy territory. I’m…Jesus fuck—I’m like a Lannister in a household of Stark men. Help me escape, Sandor.”

“Sansa, no,” Sandor said with a shake of his head. “Don’t do this to me. You know I can’t go against Jon.”

“You were once sworn to protect me.”

“At the order of your husband.”

“First, at the order of my father.”

Sandor sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t go against Jon. He’d kill me. Then where would you be?”

“Dead, because he’s probably going to fucking kill me anyway.” 

“He’s not going to kill you. I’ll talk to him, okay?”

“Do you think he’ll listen to you?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll try.” He pushed her gently back down the hall. “Go to bed, Little Bird.”

“I can’t sleep like this! Are you crazy?” She started to cry. 

“Go on now, Little Bird. I’ll talk to him. I’ll knock his fucking ass out if he does anything that might even be construed as bringing harm to you, okay?”

Sansa wrung her hands together. “Sandor—”

“Sansa, it’s okay. Just go.”

She went back to the bedroom against her better judgment and then, after much work, managed to push the bureau in front of the door. There. He wasn’t getting in now. Not unless he broke a window and if he did that, well…

She went to the medicine cabinet and moved a few things around. She came across a nail file. It had a blue handle. She stared at it feeling some of her fear recede. In its place was, strangely enough, jealousy. Jon wasn’t the type to have a fucking nail file in his medicine cabinet. Had some woman set up camp long enough to leave a few personal items behind? Had he never noticed it or did he just not care enough to remove it? _Get a grip, Sansa_ , she thought. _You were gone for three years. You know there had to be other women. Besides, that isn’t what you’re supposed to be focusing on here._

Resolved, somewhat at least, she gripped it in her hand, went to the bed and sat up, her back against the headboard. And she waited. 

xxxxxxxx 

Jon glared at Sandor when his guard – or rather, Sansa’s fucking guard – walked in the rec room. The rec room held a pool table, a poker table, a TV, a couple sofa’s and a loveseat and a bar. Currently, Jon was making his way through a bottle of scotch. 

“Pour me one?” Sandor asked. 

“Get it yourself,” Jon snapped. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your attitude tonight, Clegane.”

Sandor sighed. “And what attitude would that be?”

“I know exactly how you feel about my wife,” Jon said. “You don’t hide it very well.” He knocked back another shot. He’d lost count of how many he’d had so far. He needed something to take the edge off. He’d been wound up tighter than a drum to begin with, but then to discover that Sansa had been pregnant when she’d left him…Christ. 

He could wring her fucking neck for running away from him with their child like that. _Their_ child, _theirs_. A baby that would have been part him and part her. It had been something they’d talked about while dating. (“Do you want kids some day?” “Yeah, do you?” “Yeah.” “Great.”), and then when they were married. The conversation then had been a little bit different though. He remembered once Sansa had thought there was a possibility she was pregnant and when she’d discovered she wasn’t they had had a frank talk about it. 

“The thing is, Jon, I’m just not sure now is a good time,” she’d told him. 

“Is there ever really a good time to have kids?” he’d asked her. 

He remembered how sad she had looked then. “Things are kind of tense right now with the Lannisters. I’m not sure I feel comfortable with the idea of bringing a child into it. I don’t…I don’t want to raise a child to take over the family business.”

He’d been disappointed, but he’d also understood. Yet he still wanted kids one day with Sansa and he made that clear. She had been noncommittal. Then things with the business had come up and he’d been distracted. 

Now to find out she’d been pregnant with their child and had kept it from him. That there could have been a child made up of him and her out there and he would have never known…?

He knocked back another shot and then watched as Sandor got a shot glass from under the bar and poured himself one. He knocked the shot back and then slapped it down on the bar and looked at Jon. “What’s your end game here?” he asked. 

“Meaning?” 

“Meaning you’ve got Sansa convinced you’re gonna kill her and that all you’re doing right now is toying with her like a cat does with its prey.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “She’s being melodramatic.”

“Is she?” Sandor said, not bothering to mask his irritation. “You’ve done nothing but scream and shout at her and drag her about. You let Arya hit her—”

“That was her sister that Sansa left too—”

“And Sansa is your _wife_. She didn’t deserve that, and not in front of your men. Tormund was already sour at her for what she did, and you just gave him permission to threaten her.”

Jon’s head snapped up. “What? What did he say to her?”

“She wouldn’t tell me, but let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy reunion I walked in on.”

“ _When_?”

Sandor was aware he was about to lie, but he would. For Sansa. “When she was on her way to the kitchen to get a glass of water.”

Jon’s jaw clenched. “I’ll talk to him. He should know better than to threaten Sansa.”

“He’s following your fucking _lead_ , Jon. You showing everyone how much you loathe her—”

“I don’t loather her,” Jon croaked. “I want to and I can’t.”

“Then get your fucking head out of your goddamn ass and figure your shit out. She’s terrified and she’s in a houseful of people that are against her. Except for me.” 

Jon glared at him for that, but Sandor ignored him. 

“If you brought her to just punish her then I think you’ll find you’re gonna end up punishing yourself in the process. I know what she did was a shitty thing to do. I was here; I know all too well what it did to you.” _To all of us,_ he added in his head. “I was also here when you learned she was alive. I saw the look on your face. You were _happy_. I know you love Sansa, I know how much you’ve always loved her and I know that you’re also angry with her. You have every right to be, but Jesus Christ, Jon, if this is what you dragged her back here for then you should have let her be.”

Sandor knocked back another shot, slammed it down on the bar and stalked off. Hopefully that got through to him. As he made his way down the hall to head home, he passed by Arya in the kitchen. 

“Still her little lap dog huh, Sandor?” Arya taunted him. 

Sandor kept going as he said, “About as much as you’re Jon’s I suppose.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you. :)

“Sansa, let me in.”

Sansa started at the sound of Jon’s voice coming through the door and it took her a second to realize she’d actually fallen asleep. Light filtering through the sides of the curtains told her they’d passed over into daytime. She looked the clock. It was 11 am. Nothing like extreme stress to get her over the jet lag hump. 

So, Jon had left her alone last night. Well, that was something. 

She climbed out of the bed, her body protesting the whole way, and went to the door. “I don’t want to let you in,” she said. 

“Sansa, please. I want to talk.”

“You don’t talk. You shout. And you drag me around and push me and shake me.”

She heard him sigh. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to shout anymore. I’m not going to put my hands on you again. Please let me in so we can talk.”

Sansa didn’t necessarily believe him. At all. But she also couldn’t very well stay locked up in the bedroom could she? She would eventually need to eat. And, as if on cue, her stomach growled. 

She glanced over at the bed. The nail file was lying among the sheets. So she still had a weapon at least. Besides, she could still plan an escape with or without the door open. Nothing said she had to stay here. Well, Jon had said, but fuck him. She wasn’t going to stay where it was clear all he’d brought her back for was to punish her. She'd find a way to escape him again. 

Right now she just wanted to get seeing Jon over with. She sighed. “I need to move the bureau.”

“You put the bureau in front of the door?” He sounded shocked. 

“Yes,” she hissed as she started to pull it away from the door. After a few tugs, it was finally moved enough that she could unlock the door. She rushed over to the bed and grabbed the nail file before rushing across the room to put as much distance between her and Jon as she could. 

When he opened the door and stepped inside his eyes swept the room and when they fell on her she was surprised to find him looking rather defeated. He looked like shit, too. Bleary-eyed, hair a tangled mess (much like hers) and just exhausted. He looked her over and then his gaze fell on the nail file in her hand and he looked startled by it. “Where did you get that? What are you doing?” he asked. 

“It was in your medicine cabinet and it’s now my weapon,” she said. She wanted to ask whose it was, but what did it matter at this point? They were broken. Done. It didn’t matter anymore, so it shouldn’t bother her the way it did. She shouldn’t feel sucker-punched. She was the one who left with no intention of returning. Why should the fact that they were now so obviously over and he could have had a slew of women in and out of his bedroom bother her? 

“Sansa, you don’t need a weapon,” he said quietly and shut the door behind him. 

She lifted her hand with the nail file. “Stay there. I mean it. I’m not going to have you manhandling me today. I’m fucking done. I’m done with you and I’m done with being here. Just let me go back home.”

He sighed, looking pained. “You keep saying that,” he muttered. “Calling Wales home. It’s not your home. Your home is here.”

“It’s not anymore, Jon. Home is supposed to be a place where you’re welcome and cared for. I’m not welcome here, and I’m definitely not cared for.”

“Did you really expect that no one would feel hurt and betrayed and fucking angry after what you did?” he asked, his eyes blazing with fury. “Do you have any idea what it did to us to think you’d killed yourself? You gutted all of us, Sansa. Ripped our fucking guts right out… left us shells…”

She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat at his words. She didn’t think he was talking about all of them – Arya, Sandor, Sam, and Tormund – as being shells, but him. 

“I want to say I’m sorry,” she said softly. “But I feel like that’s not strong enough or that you’d even believe me…”

“I don’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “And it’s not.”

He went over and sat down on the bed, facing away from her. He slumped over, rubbing at his eyes. “What has become of us?” Before she could answer, he continued, looking up at the wall instead of at her. “Do you remember when I finally asked you out?”

Sansa didn’t reply, but she remembered. 

“I remember being so fucking nervous even though Robb assured me you wouldn’t say no. It had taken me weeks just to get up the courage to tell him that I was in love with you.” He didn’t turn his head as he spoke and she wondered if it was easier to talk about it while not looking at her, and if the sight of her filled him with rage. 

“You were wearing a sundress,” he said softly. “Your legs, they looked like they went on for miles. Later, I learned they did.” He chuckled a bit. “You were barefoot and your hair was loose and you were so goddamned beautiful I couldn’t breathe. I remember thinking that I would sell my soul to have you for my own.”

Sansa’s breath hitched, but she didn’t move. She kept her gaze on him, gripping the nail file hard in her hand, but dropped it to her side instead of up and at the ready. 

“They always talk about how after a certain amount of time the passion fades. The need fades. That you just get comfortable with each other and it’s not the same kind of heat.” He shook his head. “I never felt the passion fade. I wanted you just as much as I did when I realized that I had always been in love with you.”

Silence fell again. 

“You can’t say the same about me, can you?” he asked softly. Finally, he got to his feet and looked back at her. “Well?” he asked, and he sounded as though he was getting angry again. “Can you?”

“Wanting you was never a problem, Jon,” she said. 

“But loving me? Had you just stopped?”

She shook her head. 

He sighed and gestured to her. “Sansa, put the nail file away. I’m not going to touch you.”

She ignored his request. “What do you want from me?” 

“I told you that already.”

“You can’t mean it.”

“I do.”

“You haven’t acted like it.”

He moved closer to her and she lifted the file again. He stopped. He was definitely angry again, he looked like he wanted to shout at her and was trying not to. His hands were balled into fists. “You destroyed me,” he ground out. “It’s not like I can just put that behind me and pretend that you didn’t fucking rip my heart out. You’re my wife, Sansa. You were the one person who was supposed to take care of me as much as I took care of you.”

“But you didn’t, Jon!”

“I killed for you—”

“And I don’t want that blood on my hands and I didn’t want it on yours either. I wasn’t…you keep saying that you loved me but I didn’t feel that you did. Not anymore. I was…I was just something else you had to take care of. You promised my father and you promised Robb that you would take care of me and God knows you weren’t going to go against your word to them, but that’s what it felt I was reduced to. I just felt in the way. And as stupid and as naïve as Arya thought me. I was just that waste of space and that’s how it felt from you, from her… You wouldn’t talk to me anymore and when we’d have sex it felt like you were just using my body to get a release.” She wiped furiously at her eyes as the tears spilled. “I might as well have been dead. I wasn’t going to bring a child into that, make it something else you felt duty bound to take care of. I thought you would have been better off without me.”

“Better off without you? Without my heart? Without my soul?” His voice cracked and she was surprised to see tears in his eyes. “Did you really think I would kill you last night?” he asked softly. 

“Yes. And if not you then someone else.”

“Like Tormund?”

She looked at him sharply and he shrugged. “Sandor told me.” Jon said and wiped at the few tears that had fallen. “He’s taken back to his old duties rather quickly.”

“It’s nice to know someone has my back when everyone here hates me.” 

He nodded, jaw clenching. “That’s on me. I’m going to fix that. We’re going to fix _all_ of this, Sansa.”

“There’s nothing left to fix, Jon!” she exclaimed. “We’re not _breaking_ – we’re not in the process _of_ – we’re _broken_. You don’t trust me, I don’t trust you, there’s a Grand Canyon sized gulf of hurt and anger between us - how do you think we can possibly fix this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But we’re going to try.”

“And if we can’t?”

“We will.”

“I can’t decide if you’re just being stubborn or _really_ optimistic.”

“How about hopelessly romantic?” he asked with a bit of a grin that Sansa never thought she’d see again. 

“So then how do we try?”

“I think we’ll start with a trip. Tormund can take care of the business for a few days. You and I need some time alone.”

“Where are we going to go?” she asked warily. 

“Our home by the sea, of course.”

“The Quiet Isle?” 

He nodded. “Perfect, don’t you think? You’ve always loved Maine and our house there. I haven’t been much since…” He shook his and sighed. “We’ll be safe there and we’ll be away from this…madness.”

“The madness will be here when we get back, Jon. That’s the problem. The madness never really goes away.”

“One step at a time, Sansa, please.” He almost sounded as though he was pleading with her. “What do you think? Yes? We’ll go away? Have seafood, go for long walks on the beach, sit out on our deck and watch the waves?”

“You’re not going to kill me and dump my body in the water, are you?”

“God, Sansa, no. You drive me fucking crazy, but the last thing I ever want is for you to be dead.”

While she was sure he meant to reassure her, instead that just made her feel guilty. 

“I’m going to have a meeting with everyone. I want you to be with me when I do. Convene in the living room in an hour and then we’ll make plans to head out.”

Would she be crazy to agree to this? And did she really even have a choice when it came down to it? Somehow she doubted it. Yet something _had_ shifted between them during their talk. She was still wary; she couldn’t help but be, but at least there had been some civility in their talk. How long it would last though? God knew. 

“Fine,” she said. 

“We’ll get you new clothes while we’re out there, too.”

“Okay,” she whispered. 

“Thank you,” he said softly. “I’m just going to shower and get dressed.”

“I’m going to use the bathroom down the hall,” she murmured. She still gave him a wide berth as she moved around him and headed out of the bedroom. She tapped the nail file against her other hand as she pondered the trip and the meeting he wanted to have beforehand. 

Arya was coming down the hall heading right for her and Sansa inwardly groaned. Arya stopped and pointed at the Sansa’s hands. “Where did you get that?”

Sansa looked down at the nail file. “Jon’s medicine cabinet.”

Arya reached out and snatched it from her hands and said before she kept going, “It’s mine. It’s my lucky lock picker.”


	9. Chapter 9

_It’s my lucky lock picker.  
It’s my lucky lock picker.  
It’s my lucky lock picker._

Sansa couldn’t get it out of her head as she showered and dressed. Then she’d tell herself to get a fucking grip. It was a nail file, not underwear. Not negligee. If Jon still had housekeepers coming in once a week then they could have just put it in his medicine cabinet. It didn’t mean anything.

So why couldn’t she get it out of her head? Why was that explanation not sufficing? She kept going back to how after Arya had smacked her Jon had gone after her sister. _No, that doesn’t mean something went on between them,_ she told herself. Even if Arya would be better suited to him. The thought of it though felt like a snake coiling around her throat and choking her.

Did she have any right to care if they had considering what she’d done? She let him believe she was dead. He’d been, for all intents and purposes, a widower. But if they had then why bring her back to Winterfell? Why not let her stay in Wales?

She still wasn’t one-hundred-percent convinced that Jon actually wanted to work on their marriage. No matter what she still felt for Jon, their marriage was in ruins. There couldn’t be any gong back from all that was between them. She stood by the fact that she didn’t want to go back to how things were and she really didn’t see any alternatives. He could open up to her until the cows came home but it wouldn’t change the violence, nor would it change fact that she did not want to raise a child in this environment.

Nor would it change what she did to escape him, and the apparent damage it had - and not just on him, but on everyone close to them. She was the outsider now. She’d betrayed the boss in a big way and there was not changing that. She was secondary when it came to Jon to begin with, he was the boss after all and that was just the nature of the beast, but now after this? She was dead last. At least to everyone but Sandor. Could she really count on Tormund or Arya to have her back even if they were ordered to do so? If shit went down, how easy would it be to say that it had been an accident? That they had done all they could to protect her?

If by some miracle she and Jon managed to fix their marriage – and that was a mighty huge if – it wouldn’t be just his trust he’d have to earn back, but his men as well. It felt like an uphill battle. It felt like something that would never work. She was no longer the Boss’s Wife who baked cookies and brownies watched Tormund and Sandor and Sam become little boys with milk mustache as they sat around the kitchen table nibbling on her treats.

But still – what exactly was Jon’s endgame here? Was it an ego thing? Was it a possession thing? _Hmmm, yeah, that feels more like it,_ she thought. _Perhaps a bit from column A and column B. His ego and the fact that he sees me as his possession._

He’d never even asked her if she wanted to try to fix this. He’d just said that they would, and didn’t seem interested in hearing that they might not be able to.

“What do I even want?” she muttered as she ran the brush through her hair and stared at herself in the mirror with her mind wandering.

“Sansa, are you ready?”

She jumped at the sound of Jon’s voice through the door and she gripped the brush in her hand and called for him to come in.

He stepped inside and immediately she was on her guard again. He looked better after a shower. His hair was still wet and he wore dark gray dress pants and a crisp white button-down with the first button undone. He attempted a smile and then frowned when he saw the brush in her hand and the way she gripped it. “Another weapon?”

Reluctantly, almost haltingly, she put it down on the bureau.

“Breakfast is ready in the kitchen,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“Is everyone down there?”

“Yes.”

“Can you have Sandor bring me a tray?”

Jon sighed and shook his head. “No. Sansa, I think it’s important that they see us together. They need to see us as a united front.”

She barked out a laugh. “Jon, you could walk in there with me straddling you and they wouldn’t believe we were a ‘united’ front.”

“You’re my wife, and they are our men—”

“Your men.”

“ _Ours_. Tormund was out of line and he needs to learn that no matter what goes on between you and me, you are not to be disrespected. If he, or anyone else, does not understand that and disrespects you again, I’ll—”

“Please don’t say kill, please don’t say kill!”

He sighed as though trying to gather his strength for dealing with her. “I’ll teach them a very hard lesson about what it means to disrespect you and to go against my wishes.”

“So then what do we do? Just go down there together and hope that’s it? Act as though we’ve reconciled? What’s your plan here?”

He held out his hand. “You’ll take my hand and we’ll walk in there together. We’ll sit down together, we’ll talk to each other, and we’ll be polite to one another. Just follow my lead.”

She looked at his hand. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Why not?” he asked on a huff.

“Oh I don’t know, Jon. Maybe my reticence started when you had me zip tied with duct tape over my mouth, or maybe it was when Arya slapped me across the face and you went after her and let it be known to them exactly what you thought of me. Or _maybe_ it was when you pushed me and shook me and dragged me down the hall. It could have been any one of those things that made me think – wow, there’s a dick! It’s a real _fucking_ mystery why I don’t want to hold your hand! Maybe you’re good at pretending, but I’m not.”

“Sansa,” he said through clenched teeth and twisted his neck to the side, cracking it.

“Go ahead, fucking lost it again, I dare you,” she seethed, looking him unwaveringly in the eyes. “Give me another reason to think you’re a monster.”

Now he looked as though she’d slapped him. “You told me once I wasn’t a monster.”

It was true, she had. And she’d even believed it then. “Things. Change.”

He moved so fast away from her that she jumped. He stopped at the door and ran his hand through his hair. She imagined him counting to twenty. Finally, he turned and said, “Sansa, I was wrong in how I handled things when we got here yesterday. Tormund threatening you was proof of that. I cannot let that go on. For your safety going forward I need you to just pretend for a little while that you can’t stand the sight of me. And the touch of me. It won’t be for long, and then we’ll be on our way and you can spend the entire trip up there loathing me.” He held out his hand again. “I’m _trying_ , Sansa. I just need you to meet me at least a quarter of the way. Just enough to put right what I made wrong yesterday. Please.”

 _Just get it over with_ , she thought and put her hand in his. When his hand closed down around hers, but not ungently, she tried her best to ignore the jolt that went through her.

He didn’t move. Instead, he stood there, staring down at their joined hands as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Jon,” she said.

He muttered, “Right then.” He looked up at her. “Ready?”

“Not at all.”

“Just…just try to relax.”

“You’re joking, right?”

His mouth quirked into a grin. “I’d say trust me, but…”

She laughed. It had a bit of a hysterical edge to it, but it was a laugh nonetheless. He looked at her with something akin to wonder. “I missed that sound,” he whispered.

Sansa clamped her mouth shut; she didn’t know what to say.

“Showtime,” he murmured and together they walked out the door and then down the hall.

It was sad how a kitchen could scare the shit out of her, but it did. Because it’s where they all were, getting ready for their tasks for the day over coffee and breakfast. And all of them except for Sandor hate her. Maybe not Sam, but she hadn’t seen him yet and she knew how close he and Jon were.

She doesn’t realize until Jon squeezes her hand that she’s had his in a death grip. “Sorry,” she muttered and loosed her grip only to have him tighten his.

“It’s okay,” he murmured.

When they stepped into the kitchen, silence fell. Arya and Tormund glared at her. Sam looked at her with his head cocked to the side and a studious look on his face. Sandor pushed forward and nodded to them both. “Bout time you both got around to joining us.”

Sansa wished she could say his words had the desired effect of easing the tension in the room but no such luck. Though she can’t say it doesn’t feel good to have at least one ally. She smiled nervously at Sandor in thanks and he nodded. “Coffee, mi’lady?” he asked as he made his way over to the coffee pot. It had been a running joke for Sandor and Tormund to call her that and she laughed – though nervously again.

Sam stepped forward and planted himself right in front of Sansa. “Hello, Sansa. How are you?”

Sansa attempted to smile and darted a glance around the room “Oh, I’m okay. How are you, Sam?”

Sam looked at Jon. “May I hug your wife, Jon?”

“By all means,” Jon said cordially.

Sam hugged her Sansa felt that perhaps she could weep. So, she had someone else on her side. Sam kissed her cheek. “It’s good to see you,” he said quietly, and yet loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Now Sam, you asked for a hug not a kiss,” Jon scolded teasingly and to Sansa’s great surprise, he drew Sansa into his side and wrapped an arm about her waist. “Sandor, what about that coffee?”

Sandor appeared with a mug and handed it to Sansa. “Cream and two sugars, yes?”

Sansa nodded. “Thank you, Sandor.”

“And mine?” Jon teased, but Sansa could almost hear a hint of warning in his voice. His arm also tightened about her.

“I’ll get it for you, my love,” she said. The endearment slipped from her lips as though no time had passed at all. It was what she used to call him. She kept moving forward towards the coffee pot, remembering to put a serene smile on her face. Especially with Arya watching her like a goddamn hawk.

After they’d heaped their plates full of food Sansa and Jon sat down at the table together and Sansa tucked in, unashamed about stuffing her face. She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was until she’d seen the food.

She listened while Jon chatted with Tormund and Sandor about a shipment that was coming in the following afternoon and ordering them to be there.

“And where will you be?” Tormund asked.

“I’ll tell you after breakfast,” Jon said.

“Just say it now,” Arya drawled. She darted a glance at Sansa. “Taking the princess back to Wales?”

“ _No_ ,” Jon said sternly and loudly. A hush fell over the kitchen. He looked directly at Arya as he spoke. “Sansa and I are going away for a few days to our house in Maine. We’re going to spend some time together and work a few things out.” Sansa watched him speak to her sister and thought how odd it was that he spoke to her as though he was trying to convey something else beyond the fact that he was taking a few days off.

“A few?” Arya asked with a snort. Tormund said not a word, but he watched the exchange with great interest. “Would one of those things be about what a lying sack of—”

“That’s enough, Arya!” Jon shouted. Her eyes went wide and she straightened in her chair. “You’ll not disrespect Sansa any longer. No matter how you may personally feel about her, she’s still my wife and she is still first when it comes to safety.” He leveled a look at Tormund. “If anyone disrespects her or threatens her, I’ll gut them like a fish. Am I understood?”

Tormund nodded, looking partly pissed and partly shamed.

“You’re going to fucking Maine?” Arya demanded.

“Yes,” Jon said matter-of-factly. “Sansa and I need some time alone.”

“This is such complete bullshit,” Arya spat and got up from her seat and stormed from the room.

Jon looked annoyed and a bit upset and when Sansa looked over at Sandor she found her friend looking in the direction of where Arya had stormed off in disgust.

Sansa made a mental note to ask Sandor just what the fuck was going on between Arya and Jon before they left for their trip.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the lovely picset made by perfectliesfromaperfectdame on Tumblr! 
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/lost%20and%20found%201_zpspxuepwvq.jpg.html)  
>    
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/lostandfound2_zpsopkgmppb.jpg.html)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> And this is the Stark/Snow house
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/lost%20and%20found%20house_zpsi7aqzfim.jpg.html)  
> 

Following breakfast was the big meeting Jon had wanted to have with his men. He said that it was to be the “major players”. If this was a management team there was Jon at the top as the manager and those he directed who were like a bunch of assistant managers with Tormund being below Jon, and sometimes Sandor when he wasn’t on “Little Bird Duty.” The assistant managers were the “major players”. 

Sansa had a feeling this meeting was going to be much of the same spiel Jon had given over breakfast minus the outburst of Arya, because Sansa was pretty sure that Arya was excused from the meeting. 

Before the meeting took place when Jon’s men were in the process of arriving, Sansa broke free enough to join Sandor outside while he had a cigarette. She was so strung out she was tempted to ask him for one. 

“Shouldn’t you be inside by Jon’s side, Little Bird?” he asked. 

“I will be in a minute,” she said. “People are still arriving.” She was full of nerves again. Perhaps more so than when she and Jon were headed down for breakfast. Her resolve to ask Sandor about Jon and Arya had faded now that she had the opportunity. She wanted to know and yet she was terrified. If Sandor told her that Jon and Arya had been fucking she might kill them both. Not to mention strengthen her resolve to leave. Yeah, maybe she didn’t have any right to feel that way but she did and she couldn’t change how she felt despite how much she would like to. The thought of it made her shake and that’s what she was doing right now. 

To give herself something else to focus on, she looked back at the house, seeing it now for the first time in the light. This was the house she’d grown up in. The house that had been Stark organization headquarters for years. Generations, really. It was a mansion, but not as palatial as the Lannister’s. The Lannister home looked like something out of a catalog or a movie – something not quite real in its grandure. 

The Stark house on the other hand had character. It was wide in the front and long in the back, but it looked like a home. A big gray colonial complete with dormer windows at the top where the attic was. It was a home with many nooks and crannies, hardwood floors, and narrow creaking hallways. The sight of it made her miss her parents, and in this moment, her mother most of all. Catelyn Stark always knew what to do. 

Her mother had always been a formidable woman. As formidable as her husband. She was strong and brave and she didn’t take any guff. Yet she had been a wonderful mother: fun and spirited, she had doted on her kids and her husband. Ned had often said fondly that Catelyn was stronger than all of them. “She will endure,” Ned used to say. “She will endure past me that much is for certain.”

How wrong he’d been. 

After Robb and then Ned died she’d had a break down. After attempting to take her own life a few times in the span of a year, she’d ended up in an institution and then ended up staying permanently. The last time Sansa had seen her mother it was before she’d left for Wales. Catelyn hadn’t remembered who she was at first, and when she did remember, she had started to sob and shake and scream about Ned and Robb being dead and gone. She’d had to be restrained and Sansa had had to face another fact: her mother as she knew her was gone. All that was left was a shell of a woman. 

Sansa had feared that would be her fate – to eventually go as mad as her mother. At the time, with a child on the way, she had felt that was a very real possibility for though her son or daughter had yet to be born if the mobster life claimed her child and Jon as well…

It was too late to save one, but she could save the other. 

Shaking thoughts of her mother off, she watched Sandor take a drag off his cigarette and nodded toward it. “Could I have a drag?”

Sandor arched his brow at her. “Since when do you smoke?”

“I don’t. I mean in Wales I did it a few times when I was drunk.”

“You’re not drunk right now.”

“I sorta wish I was,” she muttered. 

Sandor handed over his cigarette. “Me too.”

Her lips quirked into a crooked grin and she brought the cigarette to her mouth and sucked in. She coughed when the smoke hit the back of her throat and it stung. “Not the same when you’re drunk.”

Sandor chuckled. “No, I can’t imagine it is.”

She took another drag and this one went a bit smoother.

“Sansa!” 

She turned and found Jon descending the front steps and coming towards her. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked when he was closer and only she and Sandor could hear. “You smoke now?”

“I just wanted a drag.” she said. “Dad.”

He looked at her disapprovingly and she rolled her eyes. “I want you to come inside with me now, Sansa. Please.”

“On with the show this is it,” she sang. 

Jon’s brow furrowed. “Was that—?”

“The Bugs Bunny theme song? Why yes, yes it was.”

He sighed and held out his hand. “Come on.”

She sighed and took his hand and looked at Sandor over her shoulder. “You coming in for the big show?”

“You bet,” Sandor muttered and stamped out his cigarette. 

“Will you be making Arya attend this meeting?” Sansa asked. “Or does she get special treatment on account of your… _special_ relationship?” She watched him closely for any reaction, but he gave none. That wasn’t too surprising considering he’d had years to perfect his poker face. 

“The special relationship being she is my sister-in-law?” he asked. He looked forward as he said, “I talked with her privately; no, she will not be attending.”

 _So, where I should have been was inside eavesdropping on that conversation_ , she thought. 

Jealousy rolled through Sansa making her skin feel tight. She saw Jon and Arya in her mind’s eye locked in a passionate embrace with Jon telling her not to worry, he’d take care of Sansa and make sure that this time she would really be dead. 

Sansa yanked her hand from Jon’s and he looked at her in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said hastily. “My hands are sweaty and I just don’t want to hold hands.”

“No, they’re not,” he said. 

She ignored him and gestured for him to precede her into the living room. He didn’t take her hand, but once they took their spot at the front of the room in front of the room of assembled mobsters – some Sansa recognized and some she did not – Jon pulled her into his side, his arm loose around her waist. 

She scanned the room, looking them all over as some sat in the overstuffed sofa and chairs, and others stood about the room. She recognized Grenn and Yoren and a couple others that had been new to the organization shortly before she’d left. 

“Thank you all for meeting with me today,” Jon said. There was a murmuring in the crowd in acknowledgement of his greeting. “Some of you know Sansa,” he continued. “And some of you do not.” He looked at Sansa and looked at her in that reverent way he used to look at her. “This is my wife, this is Sansa.”

“Where you been, Red?” Yoren shouted out. 

Sansa opened her mouth to answer, but Jon cut her off. “It doesn’t matter where she’s been,” he said. “It matters that she’s home now.”

While Sansa knew that for this meeting her whereabouts did not matter, in the larger picture it disturbed her to realize that where she’d been and the life she’d led truly did not matter to Jon. Her life in Wales mattered insomuch as how it affected him now – for example, Willas, and it being the place she’d escaped to that he’d had to collect her from. But the job she’d had, the friends she’d made, the home she’d created – it didn’t matter. She didn’t belong to the world; she belong to him. 

As he spoke about her protection being paramount, just as much if not more than his, and then about their upcoming trip, Sansa only half-listened. She thought about her friends in Wales trying to contact her and not being able to. She thought about her job and the kids she taught – would her sudden disappearance upset them? Most likely. Not knowing what happened to her would perhaps become fodder for some inventive stories among staff and parents: she was kidnapped (that was true), she was murdered (jury was still out on that), she’d gone to Beachy Head and jumped in a fit of despair, she’d driven her car off some cliff, and she’d joined a cult. How would those yarns affect those impressionable kids? Then she thought of her flat and the stories that would develop from her landlord, not to mention the ones from her friends. 

She’d left one life to build another and though she hadn’t always been happy in her new life, though her past haunted her (and she was certain her friends would speculate about all the things she wouldn’t share and did not talk about), she had still had a life. But here, with Jon, this was what she was. His wife. His consort. Someone to be protected not because any of them particularly wanted to save Sandor, but because they _had_ to. 

She felt as alone as she had before she’d left. 

“Sansa, my love, is there anything you would like to say?” Jon asked. 

She knew what he wanted her to say: that she was happy to be home. That even though she and Jon had a lot to talk about and a lot to work out, they would because after all this time their love had endured. That she’d made a mistake in leaving and was actually now relieved that Jon had found her. 

All those things she could say. She should say. But she didn’t want to. Because they were lies and these people weren’t stupid. They’d see right through her. They probably already saw through Jon, but he was the boss and you didn’t go against the boss. 

Instead, she forced herself to smile at him and said. “I think you said it all, darling.”

His smile wavered. “Why don’t you pack, sweetling? I’ve a few things to discuss with my men still.”

“Of course,” she said and made sure she didn’t run from the room as she wanted to. 

xxxxxxxxxx

With her suitcase in hand, Sansa made her way down the hall to join Jon outside where he was waiting for her. Before she got there though, Sandor met her in the hall and took her suitcase from her. 

He looked down at her in silence for a long while and then finally said, “Little Bird, just try, okay? Listen to what he has to say, and try to hear what he doesn’t.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “Did he get this cryptic advice?”

Sandor sighed. “Come on, Little Bird.”

Sansa followed Sandor out of the house and to the car where Jon was waiting for her. “We can stop on the way for anything you think you might want or need to supplement your wardrobe,” he told her. “We can stop at the outlets in Kennebunk if you want.”

She nodded. “Sure….thanks.”

“Try not to kill each other, all right?” Sandor said after he’d dumped Sansa’s suitcase in the trunk.

Sansa grimaced and looked towards the house. Arya was standing on the front steps, glaring at them. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Jon what her deal was. The way Arya stood there glaring at them…it made Sansa uneasy. 

Before she got in the car, she gave Sandor a quick hug, catching him off guard and causing him to look down at her in surprise. “Stay alive,” she said with a smile and then went to the passenger side to let herself in. 

Jon said something to Sandor that Sansa couldn’t hear, but she did see the tightening of Sandor’s jaw and his curt nod before he started for the house. 

“What did you say to him?” Sansa asked once Jon started up the car. 

“Nothing.”

“Liar. What did you say?”

“It was business, Sansa. Let it go,” Jon said as he started down the driveway. 

“Now, now, Jon. That’s really not in the spirit of this getaway, is it?”

“Sansa, please.”

“You keep saying that like it’s supposed to stop me.”

“It’s worked so far. It got you to breakfast.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she snapped. 

“Fine,” Jon snapped. “I told Sandor that I didn’t appreciate his acting like he’s your fucking husband and to remember that I am.”

“He’s the only ally I have.”

“No, Sansa, he’s not.”

“Let’s not pretend, Jon, that you have some great love for me anymore.”

“You’re wrong,” he said quietly, keeping his eyes straight ahead. He pushed a button on a remote clipped to his visor and the gate opened. Jon pulled out onto the road and Sansa pondered flinging herself out the car. 

She also pondered how to approach the subject of Arya. Every time she started the conversation in her head, she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth. That frustrated her greatly. She shouldn’t care. She didn’t _want_ to care. She had _no right_ to care. And yet she did. Greatly.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I labored over this chapter for quite a while. I sure hope it makes sense.
> 
> Oh! And a playlist! I made one!
> 
> [Lost & Found (Jon x Sansa)](http://8tracks.com/janinam8/lost-found-jon-x-sansa-1?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [JaninaM8](http://8tracks.com/janinam8?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](http://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).

Jon didn’t know how to talk to his wife. He just didn’t know what to say. It didn’t make much sense considering they had so much to talk about, but he didn’t know where to begin. He felt as though he no longer knew the woman sitting next to him and it scared him. At one time he knew Sansa better than he knew himself. Once, they had been so attuned to one another it was as though they were one being. 

Perhaps that was why her betrayal had hurt so goddamn bad. Sansa had always been someone he’d relied on, depended upon. She had always been his port in the storm, the one safe place he could always count on. When she was gone all that had left her with her and he’d never felt so lost in his life. He’d gone through the motions of living, but felt as though he’d been left a shell. He had feared that he would become Catelyn Stark because there certainly were moments when he thought he would lose his mind from the loss of Sansa. 

He couldn’t exactly say when it got stuck in his head that she wasn’t really dead. It had started during one of his periods when he wanted to peel his skin away from his body because he couldn’t stand the pain. He’d just wanted to be free of it. Tormund said it was because there had been no body to bury, to body to see and have it sink in that she was dead. 

He could have been right about that. Without something tangible like Sansa’s body, it didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel as though she was gone at all. She just wasn’t there with him. And then he thought that maybe she was somewhere else. Maybe she was still alive. 

He’d begun to think over the last few months of their marriage. The Lannisters were causing troubles and he and his men were under stress. There had been a possible mole in the organization and Jon had had to ferret them out. There were shipments that had been seized before they reached Jon, and a few had ended up in flames. Someone from the inside was giving the Lannisters a leg up and it had to stop. 

There had been a mole and it was a kid – twenty years old – that Jon had had to dispose of. The kid’s name had been Olly, and he’d been a troubled kid that had needed a little bit of direction. Tormund had begun to rave about the kid and that caused Jon to take notice. He discovered he liked the kid and in some ways Olly had reminded Jon of himself at that age when Ned Stark had welcomed him into the family business. 

When it was discovered that Olly had been working with the Lannisters, Jon had felt the betrayal acutely, and it had filled him with an unholy rage. 

Olly had been making strides within the business enough to make Jon consider putting him on rotating guard duty with Sandor for Sansa. Jon’s reasoning for this was multi-faceted. For one, Olly was a young kid. He was quick, strong, and smart. Not that Sandor wasn’t any of those things, but he was older now. Second, Jon could use more of Sandor’s talents with him. Third, and perhaps not exactly a shining moment for Jon – he was jealous of the closeness that had been forged between Sandor and Sansa. He knew Sansa confided in Sandor and it bothered him. He couldn’t see Sansa having the same kind of relationship with Olly. 

But, before Jon could make any firm decisions and even introduce Sansa to Olly, shit had started to go down. He never brought new men around Sansa until he was certain he could trust them. There were many people in the business, but a select few got to be near Sansa. 

So when it was discovered that Olly had been the rat in his organization, Jon had him killed. This was someone he had considered entrusting with Sansa’s safety. That fucker could have killed her, or led her right to her slaughter. 

Then Myrcella had threatened Sansa and Jon saw red. 

He’d never told Sansa about Olly; had never even mentioned the kid to her. It was one of those things within the organization that she didn’t need to know about. Unless they were trusted enough to be part of the top tier of the organization then they didn’t get anywhere near Sansa. 

Plus, he had stopped telling Sansa things for a long while at that point. He didn’t want to burden her and upset her with these things just so he could absolve himself, and it was best for her to not have too much information just in case the authorities ever became involved. The less she knew the better. 

But that meant he carried it and had no outlet for it. After Olly’s betrayal, reminding him so acutely of Theon’s against Robb, he became enraged. And bloodthirsty. He wanted every single Lannister dead and gone. The change had started when he knew there was a rat, and it had gotten worse with Olly and then Myrcella. While Sansa sobbed for a young girl’s life all Jon had seen was how he’d done what he’d had to in order to protect her. Granted that meant he’d also made her more of a target.

There was nothing easy about this life.

He thought he should tell her about Olly but if she was this upset about Myrcella, how would she take Olly’s? He had been a young kid too and, as was later discovered, about to be father. Sansa would have hated him, and Jon already didn’t know how to fix any of this. You couldn’t exactly “fix” death. 

Jon couldn’t take Sansa’s tears over that bitch’s death. Couldn’t take the way she looked at him as though he was a monster. If being a monster kept them safe then he would embrace it. Why couldn’t she understand that? 

So it was with these thoughts that Jon began to think that maybe Sansa hadn’t killed herself, maybe she’d just escaped him. Ned had told them all that the only way to escape the business was death. What if Sansa had faked her death to escape it? She had been part of this life long enough, she’d picked up a few things along the way, of that he was certain. 

His men thought he was crazy and maybe he was, but if Sansa was truly gone from this world he felt like he’d know it. He’d _feel_ it. She wasn’t dead she was just gone somewhere and it drove him mad to not be able to get to her. 

And now, with her _right there_ all Jon wanted to do was touch her. But he was so goddamn hurt by what she’d done and so goddamn angry that he didn’t know how to just let what she’d done go enough to just love her. His Sansa, his partner in life had cut him deeply with her betrayal, her “trick”, and when he thought of her having had this whole other life without him and how she’d been pregnant…

“So what do you exactly have planned for us?” she asked, cutting through his thoughts. “I can tell you right now that I’m not doing any trust exercises with you.”

“No? Damn, that does throw a wrench into my plans.”

Her lips quirked into a bit of a wry grin and Jon was astounded at what a mess they’d become that the lack of trust between them became a thing to joke about. 

“Did you even miss me? Or did you just get to Wales and it was as if nothing had happened? As if we’d never shared a life or a bed?” he blurted out. It had been bugging him, wondering if she had even missed him. If she had even cared that she’d left him like that. Had she just carried on with her life as though he had never mattered, or had she at least spared some thought for him? 

She stared straight ahead for a long time without answering. 

“Sansa?”

“I don’t know how to answer you,” she said finally. 

“What do you mean you don’t know how to answer me? You tell me the truth,” he said, trying to rein in his temper. 

“Would you even believe the truth? You’ve got the narrative in your head already about it. You think I just up and left because I fell out of love with you—”

“Didn’t you? How else were you able to do what you did?”

“Your mantra had become ‘I do what I need to do to keep us safe, Sansa’. Well, I did what I had to do for my child.”

“Our child. You keep referring to things as mine or yours and not as _ours_ —”

“Having not shared your bed and therefore the bedroom for the past three years does make it yours, Jon.”

“It’s still _our_ home. _Our_ bedroom. _Our_ child. It was our life together—”

“Was it?” she exploded and looked at him incredulously. “Where? It started out that way but it did not end that way. You shut me out of everything—”

“I had to, Sansa. To protect us all it was better you didn’t know too much.”

“I guess I’m just not that good with living in the dark. Or living with a husband that I couldn’t seem to reach. I was just a body in your bed to use as a cum receptacle when you felt the need.”

That hurt. If they hadn’t been on the highway Jon might have pulled over to the side of the road to shout at her. 

No. Shouting wouldn’t help. It just made her angry then him angry and then they got to the point where they just didn’t hear each other anymore. 

“You were never a cum receptacle for me,” he ground out. “ _Never_.”

“It certainly didn’t feel that way! You didn’t even talk to me anymore, Jon. You just came in our bedroom, fucked me, and rolled over to sleep.”

He remembered those nights coming in late and needing her, needing her warmth and the solace he could find only in her arms. She would give it to him each and every time and never did he think she didn’t know how much he loved and needed her in those moments. 

It was possible however that he hadn’t talked to her the way he usually did. He had never been great with words, but he knew having them was important to Sansa and so he made sure that during sex he would talk to her. Tell her how good she felt, how beautiful she was, how he loved her. 

She was right. He hadn’t done much of that. Words had failed him because he was still in his head from the long days and needed to fill his senses with her. A part of him had been detached still and of course she’d felt it. 

“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. It was hard apologizing. He was out of practice with it and so it felt a bit as though the words been ripped from him. He felt vulnerable and exposed, something he wasn’t comfortable feeling. He waited for her to mock him. If she did, he didn’t know how to proceed then. 

She didn’t. Instead, he noticed that she was wiping away tears. 

“In answer to your question,” she said. “Yes, I did miss you. No, I did not carry on with my life as though nothing had happened. I worried about you, and I missed you, and I thought about you…” 

He glanced at her, expecting her to finish that train of thought. She finished quietly with, “I thought about you every day.” 

Jon didn’t think that was how she was going to finish her original train of thought though and he wondered what it was she had been about to say. 

xxxxxxxx

Their first stop was the outlets. Jon pulled into the parking lot of what used to be her favorite shops – Talbots, Anne Taylor, and DSW Warehouse. “What do you need?”

“I just need some clothes,” she sighed. “Dressier clothes since most of what I packed was not.” She grabbed her purse off the floor and placed it on her lap. She opened it and began rifling through it. “I taught Year One in Wales so I wore stuff that could get dirty. I didn’t dress like a slob, but I didn’t wear Anne Taylor either.”

Sansa had just finished up her schooling and had gotten her teacher’s certificate before she’d left. She had just been about to start looking for a job. She had been excited about it too, and to hear that she’d pursued her goals and he hadn’t been there to witness it stung. 

“Will you pursue teaching here?” he asked, shoving down the resentment he felt at her other life. 

“I haven’t really thought that far ahead yet,” she said softly. “I just got here last night. Time will tell I guess what is next for me.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked sharply, looking at her with narrowed eyes. 

She sighed and shook her head. “Forget it,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” She went to get out of the car, but Jon grabbed her arm and stopped her. She glared at him. “Now what?”

“I’m not giving you a divorce, Sansa. You’re not leaving me again.”

“You don’t know that this is going to work.”

“It will,” he said stubbornly. _It has to._

“You keep saying that but you don’t know what will happen. What you want to happen and what will happen might very well be two different things, Jon. You may decide in the end that it’s better to end this.”

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. 

She looked at him archly. “Is that your pride talking or this love you think you still feel for me?”


	12. Chapter 12

_“Is that your pride talking or this love you think you still feel for me?”_

Sansa’s words rolled around and around in Jon’s mind as he followed her into Anne Taylor and watched her peruse through the racks. A saleswoman came over to talk to her and Sansa engaged with her, allowing the woman to lead her further into the store and show her a few more items. She laughed. She smiled. 

Jon found his lips twitching into a smile at the sound of her laughter and the sight of her smile. Her laughter and her smiles had always been contagious. When Sansa smiled she lit up a room, and when she laughed she made people want to be close to her. She dazzled people easily and it was something that Jon had always loved about her. 

_“Is that your pride talking or this love you think you still feel for me?”_

It bothered him, how she’d phrased the last bit: this love you _think_ you still feel for me. 

Yet he hadn’t really shown the love he had never stopped feeling for her, had he? No, because his pride coupled with the hurt and the anger he felt regarding her betrayal was clouding everything else. His urges to kiss her and hold her were overshadowed by the betrayal he felt. When he thought of the grief he’d endured thinking she was dead and how devastated he’d been each and every time he’d come to a dead end in his search to prove she was alive, he felt it all over again. 

_“There are three sides to every story”_ , Ned had told him once as a young boy when he and Robb had gotten into an argument over some stupid game they’d been playing. _“Your side, their side, and the truth. Sometimes the truth is difficult to get at though, so why don’t we start with both of you telling your side of the story.”_

He’d learned that day the importance of hearing the other side, because no matter how right you thought you were, there was another side that perhaps saw things and experienced things a little differently. He remembered being shocked that Robb had thought Jon had been out to sabotage him when that hadn’t been his intent at all. He remembered trying to defend himself, which had stirred Robb up, and the two had ended up shouting at each other until Ned had put a stop to it. 

_“You both need to listen to what the other has to say,”_ Ned had said. _“Then I want you think about what you heard.”_

Nostalgia hid Jon strong and hard. God, he missed that man. Robb too. _Remember that Sansa is not only your wife, but the daughter of your mentor and the sister of your best friend,_ he thought. _How would they want you to proceed with Sansa?_

Jon thought of the zip ties and duct tape. Of how he’d dragged her into the house and even when she said he was hurting her he didn’t stop. He’d said he didn’t care. He’d shown her disrespect in front of his men to the point that Tormund had threatened her. He’d made her think he was going to _rape_ her for fuck’s sake. 

Shame hit him hard then. 

Ned and Robb would have had his head for his behavior. 

No wonder Sansa had said what she’d said: _this love you **think** you still have for me._

She didn’t believe it just because he said it, and he hadn’t even said it had he? Truthfully, right now, he wasn’t sure he could. Not with all that anger and hurt and God, he had to face it: it would make him vulnerable to her. And after she’d left him that way he was afraid to be vulnerable in front of her. Before, she had been the _only one_ he could be vulnerable in front of. 

No wonder he felt dead inside. He’d spent so long not showing how he felt that it became easy to shove it all down and pretend he felt nothing. With his line of work though one couldn’t show how one felt, especially not the boss. It was considered a weakness. It made you express your express your pain in other ways, such as say, cutting off the hand of your enemy when he makes a disparaging remark about your wife and your marriage. 

Jon propelled himself forward and moved closer to Sansa as she moved hangers on a rack. She saw him and said, “I promise I won’t take forever.”

“It’s okay, Sansa. We have all day.”

“You hate shopping,” she murmured. “Or at least you used to.”

“No, I still do, but I…” _I didn’t give you a lot of time to pack because I just wanted to get you home_. “I want you to get what you need. Don’t worry about me.”

She looked at him and nodded. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Is there um, is there anything I can help you with?”

She laughed and he smiled gently at her. “I won’t make you a pack mule and hold all my stuff,” she told him. “Am I going to need something dressy?”

“Yeah, probably, but why don’t we go to that boutique in Wells you like so much?”

“Sure.” She didn’t look like she knew what to do with that, or his sudden kindness either. “Thanks.”

He nodded and sat down in the empty chair near the dressing room. He watched her as she moved about the room, muttering to herself, holding stuff up against herself, and looking in the mirror. The sun streaming in from the windows caught her hair a few times and reminded him of how he’d always loved that red hair. How despite how much it looked like fire it was always cool to the touch and always smelled good. He’d always loved burying his face in it. 

He remembered falling asleep wrapped around her, their limbs entwined and his face in her hair, inhaling her sweet scent. He remembered loving how her skin felt like silk against his own when she moved and that no matter how close they were, he never felt as though they were close enough.

 _I do love you,_ he thought as he watched her, overcome with emotion. _I love you so much I can’t stand it. I just don’t know how to show it. I don’t know how to tell you. You hurt me so much, Sansa._

“I’ll be right back,” she said as she moved past him into the dressing room. He wanted to reach out and touch her, stop her and make her look at him and see him. Not the Jon he showed his enemies. Not the Jon he showed his men. Not the Jon he had steadily become – the _monster_ – but him as she used to see him. The him that was still in there somewhere, buried underneath the bodies of his victims, the bloodshed, the pain, and the anger. 

The him he had been with her. The him that had gotten lost. The him that she had once loved. 

“Do you want an iced coffee?” he asked after she’d already closed herself in the dressing. He needed some air; he felt as though he was suffocating. 

“Yes, please, thank you,” she said. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said, forcing himself to keep his voice steady. He walked out before she could reply. 

xxxxxxxxxxx

Jon returned just in time to pay for her clothes. Hell, if he was going to kidnap her from her home then he could pay for her clothes. With him he’d gotten the aforementioned iced coffee and her favorite snack: a lemon bar from Au Bon Pain. 

_Smile at him, Sansa,_ she told herself. _You catch more flies with honey._ She smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. He looked at her like he wanted to say something. Or was thinking something. Perhaps both? Then he turned away and signed the slip and off they went. 

“You need a new phone,” he told her. “I’ll have Tormund get you one, but perhaps we could just get you a cheap Tracfone for now?”

“Sure,” she said. “Lead the way.”

“Let’s put your stuff in the car first.”

After she’d put her bags in the car and they’d gotten her a temporary phone, they headed back to the car. “I was thinking about the times we’d come here before going to the Quiet Isle and you’d be all over the place, bopping from one place to the next. You were a whirlwind,” Jon said as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. 

“And I remember you giving up and sitting on one of the benches to wait for me,” she said with a little smile. 

He grinned. “With an iced coffee and lemon bar for you to refuel.”

She laughed. “Yes! You were like those people that wait at finish lines with bottles of water to hand out.”

Jon chuckled. “It often seemed that way.”

 _Oh my God_ , she thought. _We’re getting along! Don’t call attention to it._

“Things weren’t all bad, were they?” he asked softly once they’d returned to the car. 

She stopped and looked at him. “No, they weren’t.”

Silence fell, and again it looked as though Jon wanted to say something more. But he didn’t. Finally, he said. “Well then. Shall we get to our house by the sea?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

This getting along thing was nice, but in the back of Sansa’s mind she couldn’t help but wonder when the other shoe would drop and what it would be. Before things had gone south between them she had been able to read him like a book. Now she felt very much as though they were strangers trying to grasp onto past memories in order to make a connection. If they weren’t sniping at each other then they were awkward in each other’s presence. 

It wasn’t that long ago that she’d been thinking of him and missing him. Crying over him. Then he’d showed up and they’d been at each other’s throats ever since. Had she been missing and crying over the _thought_ of Jon, but when faced with the _reality_ – the version of him that she’d left, and the version of him now – she found there wasn’t anything there?

She thought of the spark she’d felt when their hands had touched that morning, and then last night when she’d resolutely refused to look at his naked torso. Okay, so perhaps there was something still there. But was it real? Or was it fueled by memories, much like their random getting along when they took trips down “When Things Were Good Lane”?

She supposed only time would tell. And if it turned out that there was nothing left to sustain them, would Jon be able to face it? And why did the thought of there being nothing left actually make her sad?


	13. Chapter 13

The Quiet Isle wasn’t an actual island separate from the rest of Ogunquit, Maine, where their property was, but it was set away from the hubbub of the town and beachgoers enough to feel like they were alone in their own private world. So, they’d dubbed it “The Quiet Isle”. Jon had even had a sign made that hung at the beginning of the long driveway down to the house. 

The house was huge, colonial style, with big windows, tons of rooms, and a long front porch where they had rocking chairs, a couple tables, and Jon had even strung up a hammock. It had a balcony outside the master bedroom, a widow’s peak, and they had their own private beach as well. 

It had always been a home away from home – and in Sansa’s opinion even more of a home than their regular residence. It was here that they could relax and feel safe. It was here that Sansa would notice how the stress of the business would melt off Jon. He would sleep longer than usual, eat a ton, and spend a lot of time on the beach with Sansa. 

One summer vacation after they’d been married, they’d devoted much time to christening almost every room in the house. Then it had been somewhat of a tradition that every time they visited over the next four years, they would make love in as many rooms as they could. Once, Sansa had come up with an elaborate game in which she’d left him clues in various parts of the house to find her in one of the rooms they never used. 

They’d had their favorite rooms to make love in though, that being the kitchen (Jon had a thing for tables), their bedroom, the living room, and sometimes the shower.

Now, as she and Jon entered the house which smelled a bit musty from underuse, she couldn’t help but remember their sexual excursions in this house. There was just something about the ocean air that had made them lusty beasts. Perhaps it was the freedom they had here because no one else was around and they knew there was no chance of being interrupted. 

“Time to open up all the windows and air it out,” Jon said as he carried put down his suitcase near the door. Sansa put her own suitcase next to his and peered into the kitchen which was off the foyer they were standing in to the left. Her eyes fell on the table and she felt her cheeks get warm. 

_“What is it with you and this kitchen table?” she asked as Jon lifted her up onto it._

_He pushed her skirt up and then pulled her panties down and bent over to lick up her slit. He grinned up at her. “Well, it is made for eating, right?”_

“You take the left, I take the right, and we’ll meet in the middle?” Jon asked her. It had been the usual way of things. The house needed to be aired out for a bit and it was so big that they’d tackle it together. 

“Sure,” she replied. God, that’s all she felt like she was saying so far on this trip. 

As she passed through each room, memories of their trips playing out like a movie in her head, and she wondered how Jon was faring and if he was experiencing the same. It made her heart ache, this further trip down “When Things Were Good Lane”. 

Here was the table in the office they’d painted together. 

Here was the library where they’d spent an entire afternoon reading together. 

Here was the living room in which they’d binge-watched a TV series on Netflix during a weekend rainstorm and joked about couch sores and atrophy. 

The things she missed about him and their marriage – when it was good - came rushing back like a tidal wave and she found herself weeping a bit as she methodically moved from room to room opening windows. 

If Jon asked, she’d just tell him it was the dust.

xxxxxxxx

Jon stared at the master bedroom from the doorway. He’d been seized with memories as soon as he’d opened the door and had been unable to enter the room. Instead, he’d stood there and stared at the massive bed that sat in the middle of the room. 

He couldn’t get the image of him and Sansa in that bed out of his head. And it wasn’t just the image of them making love there either. It was them watching late night TV. Them having breakfast in bed and reading the newspaper together. Them talking late into the night with her head on his chest. Him waking up and reaching for her or vice versa. 

He’d come here shortly after her “suicide”. He’d wanted to feel close to her and knowing how much she loved The Quiet Isle, he had thought in his madness that if she was going to haunt any place, it would be here. He’d spent nights roaming the house, pacing the widow’s peak and sitting on the beach. He’d talked to her, asking her to haunt him. He’d felt a bit like Heathcliff from _Wuthering Heights_ , begging her not to leave him where he could not find her. 

Hearing footsteps, Jon looked down the hall and found Sansa cresting the top of the stairs. She stopped when she saw him. Something snapped in him at the sight of her. It could have been the images in his head and the memory of her loss, but he started down the hall after her, feeling a bit like a bull charging a matador. Her eyes widened and she spun around and started running down the stairs as if the Devil himself was at her heels. 

And he was. 

He caught her as soon as she’d hit the last step, pushed her against the wall, and loomed over her, his face twisted with anger and pain. 

He expected her to push him away. He was waiting for it. What he didn’t expect was the tears that came instead. She looked at a loss as she looked up at him. She looked like she wanted to say something but she said nothing. That seemed to be the entire day in a nutshell. Full of things that were begging to be said but then weren’t. 

Some of his rage and hurt receded and he leaned in, sniffing at her like the animal he felt he was. He heard her sharp intake of breath and the tip of his nose skimmed her cheek. He could feel her breasts press against his chest with every breath she took. 

“Do you think if we _fucked_ it would ease some tension?” he asked on a low rumble. He gripped her hip and pulled her roughly against him, letting her feel that he was hard. She gasped.

She didn’t answer him and Jon wasn’t sure if she was waiting for him to make a move. What would she do if he did take her? Would she fight him? Would she be into it? An image of taking her with his hand around her throat filled his mind and he took his hand off of her and stepped away from her. 

She stared at him, no doubt trying to figure out what his game was. 

There was no game. 

“You weren’t completely wrong,” he rasped. “I do want to punish you for what you did.”

“Jon—

” _You broke me_!” he screamed at her, his voice cracking. She jumped. “You lived a whole other life out there while I was here losing my fucking mind! If there had been a body and a grave I would have dug you up and crawled into it with you.”

He waited for smart remark regarding Heathcliff and _Wuthering Heights_. It had always been one of her favorites, used to say she wanted someone to love her the way Heathcliff had loved Cathy. Jon wondered if she would have felt differently if she knew that Jon had loved her that way. He’d never wanted to destroy her though, not until possibly now. 

He walked away before he did something stupid, something he would regret. He was shaking and he felt out of control. He didn’t like that feeling, and it was something he felt much too often for his liking. There was a dark beast inside him that clawed and scratched to get out and it frightened him when he let it loose. The problem was, that beast kept him alive and so unleashed it often. 

But Sansa was not the enemy. She was his wife and he loved her and he…

He broke again. Once outside, Jon allowed himself to break down completely. It had been building inside him since Tormund had showed him those pictures and he’d seen that Sansa was alive. He hadn’t given in though. He kept it all inside, but he couldn’t any longer. He went to the silver birch tree at the outskirts of their yard and hunched over behind it and cried. 

It felt like something was being exorcised within him but he wasn’t clear on what it was. Not yet anyway. 

xxxxxxxxx

Sansa had started to go after Jon when he’d walked away. She had stopped when he’d hit the porch and he started to cry. 

_No. No. Best to leave him alone. Don’t make it worse,_ she though. _You’ve done enough._

She wanted to tell him she was sorry. She had wanted to tell him then when he’d looked at her and sniffed at her like some kind of feral creature. The words had gotten stuck in her throat and she wasn’t sure if it was her pride or the fact that he wouldn’t believe her if she’d said it. 

Being sorry didn’t negate the fact that she had left for a reason, but it didn’t mean that she wasn’t sorry for how she’d hurt him. She hadn’t….God, she hadn’t realized. Things hadn’t been happy, they hadn’t been good, and she part of her had thought he would be sad for a while the way all people were when someone they loved died but that he’d just…move on. That part of him would be relieved not to have to deal with her anymore. One less person to protect and take care of. 

Sansa wiped at her own tears that fell and made her way up the stairs to the master bedroom. She curled up on the bed, not caring that the bedding needed to be washed. She stared at the wall across the room and pulled a bit of the blanket up to her face to wipe at her nose and tears. She didn’t care. She just kind of wanted to really die in that moment. 

She’d done a bad thing, and it was hard to admit. 

She didn’t realize that she’d fallen asleep until she was waking up and when she did she found Jon lying asleep in the bed next to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Son of a biiiiitch, this chapter was hard as fuck to write. My problem was what I was getting from Jon and Sansa and the struggle of - do I put that in there? I'm gonna get shit for it if I do....but then deciding that this was what I wanted. A darker Jon and Sansa. And to challenge myself and push some boundaries from what I usually write. So...yeah.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard to write. Mainly because these two are so stubborn and there needed to be forward momentum. I had to mull this one over for a bit as to how I wanted it to go. Here's hoping it came out okay! 
> 
> Also - amazing picset by psdisposal on Tumblr: http://psdisposal.tumblr.com/post/140810179068/sansa-knew-that-if-she-was-going-to-truly-escape

Jon didn’t look angry when he slept. Though Sansa supposed no one looked angry when they slept. She remembered nights when he’d have a hard time falling asleep and he’d lay down with his head in her lap. She’d lightly run her finger back and forth over his third eye until he fell asleep.

Now she feared if she even touched him he’d snap her wrist. He was like an animal coiled for attack and even in sleep she had no doubt he’d be ready to fight as soon as his eyes opened. 

So, Sansa sat up slowly and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She looked out the window and the fading sun in the distance. The sky was lit up with streaks of orange, pink, some blue, and purple. She thought of the poem: Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. 

Sansa got to her feet and shuffled into the master bathroom and afterwards crept out of the bedroom and slunk down the stairs. She grabbed her phone on her way out the door and headed toward the beach. 

She sank down into the sand and breathed in the sea air as she shut her eyes. She loved the ocean, always had. She remembered summers as a kid she would spend the entire day in the lake. She would have to be coaxed out of the water to eat and then forced to sit while her parents made her wait a half an hour after eating so she wouldn’t cramp. She smiled at the memory of that now. And of Robb who would join her as they’d frolic about, going underwater with goggles on in search of fish and buried treasure. 

Then when she was older she’d gone to the ocean and had fallen in love. The crashing waves, the smell of the salt air, the wind in her hair, and the sand at her feet – she’d loved it all. Well, all of it but sand between her toes. That she hated. 

“You’re a mermaid, you know that?” Jon had said once when they had started dating and they’d come to the beach. He had thought she would spend all day worshipping the sun and squealing if he went in the water and came back to drip the cold sea water on her. Not the case at all. She was the one that ditched him to set up their spot while she tore off to the water and spent hours in it riding the waves and telling the sea her troubles. 

She came to the water to swim and to tell it what was bothering her. She could never quite say if her problems were truly fixed by doing so, but she believed they were. 

Now, here she sat watching the waves crash upon the shore and looked around her. They had a private beach here so she wasn’t quite sure what it was she expected to find. Then she got to her feet and kicked off her flats and put her phone in one of them. She had thought to call Sandor and tell him this wasn’t working, but the pull of the water had gotten her. It wasn’t as though Sandor could do anything from Winterfell anyway. Well, except for maybe begin planning an escape plan while she and Jon continued this song and dance of pretending their marriage was fixable. 

While Sansa had gotten a swimsuit when they’d gone shopping, she really didn’t feel like going back to the house and risk waking Jon. She wanted to be alone in the water. She wanted to be cleansed; she wanted to tell it her troubles. 

So, fully dressed in her skinny jeans and tank top, Sansa crept slowly out into the cold water. When she got to her waist, she went for broke and sank down to her shoulders. She laughed and shivered and moved further out. 

Her love of the water was probably why she’d chosen that as her “watery grave”. It would have been easy for Jon to believe that is where she would have chosen to take her life. She dunked under water, not wanting to think about that n0w. 

However, the peace she was chasing was not meant to be. 

“Sansa! What are you doing?” Sansa heard as soon as she’d sprang up out of the water. She stood to full height and turned, pushing her hair back and wiping water off her face. Jon was standing barefoot near the water line and looking at her worriedly. 

“Sansa!” he called again. 

“I’m just swimming!” she called back to him. 

He moved closer. “What?”

Sighing, she made her way closer. She stopped a few feet from him. “I’m just swimming,” she told him. 

“Without a suit?” he asked with a frown.

“It was an impulse decision.”

He raked a hand through his hair, looking agitated. “I though you – I thought…”

“I’d left?” she asked. 

“At first. And then I saw you out here fully dressed in the water…and then you went under and…”

She pursed her lips together. “You thought I was going to drown myself.”

He looked at her, but didn’t reply. 

“I wonder if it speaks more to my folly or yours that you would think that,” she said. “Not even forty-eight hours with you and you think I’m ready to do myself in for real.”

“Sansa—”

“You’re not going to believe me but I’m going to say it anyway. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I hurt you.”

“You’re right, I don’t believe it.”

“Just shut up and listen for once,” she snapped. He looked at her warningly and she glared at him. “I am sorry. I…I honestly didn’t think my ‘death’ would affect you as it did.”

“ _What_?” He looked positively furious now, and Sansa was beginning to think that was his permanent state of being. 

“I thought you had fallen out of love with me or was at the very least in the process of. I thought maybe I was just habit and convenience. You could fuck me when you felt the urge and be done with it, and that out of your loyalty to Robb and my father, you felt you couldn’t stray and you had to protect me. I know how you would have done anything for them, and how your word to them was your bond. And you had bonded yourself to me in marriage and even if you didn’t want it, want _me_ anymore, you went through the motions. The Jon I knew and the Jon you’d become were two different people and I didn’t know you anymore. I didn’t want our child to grow up with so much violence and I didn’t want him or her to grow up seeing their parents were so unhappy and stuck in a situation they couldn’t get out of. I thought I was releasing you as well as myself.” She shook her head. “Arya was always better accustomed to this life…” She let that thought trail off, not able to say that he had thought something might happen between them and suspected that perhaps something had. 

“Nothing could have been further from the truth,” he ground out. 

“Really? You say you came for me because I belonged home with you. You say it’s because you never stopped loving me but _where_ , Jon? _Where_ is that love? I don’t feel it! No, instead you tell me you do want to punish me. When does it stop? When does the part come where you actually want to work on this as you say you do because I certainly don’t feel it! The only way you touch me is in anger – barring, of course, the ‘show’ we had to put on. Otherwise you treat me no differently than you would a Lannister. Yes, you have the right to be angry for what I did, but if you can’t even attempt to work on this without shouting at me and pushing me against walls and yanking me here and there then there is no point in this except to assuage your wounded pride. I get it, okay? I get it. You’re powerful. You’re strong. You’re the big man, the _boss_. I got it loud and clear and this show is exactly why I left. All I saw then was anger and it’s all I see now. If this is all about punishment then tell me, is any of it making you happy because you certainly don’t seem happy! If this isn’t what you want; if _I’m_ not who you want anymore, then send me back to Wales.”

His jaw clenched and he started to pace in the water, splashing her in the process. She waited patiently for him to speak for she could see that he was struggling with something. Finally, he stopped and threw up his hands. “I don’t know how to show you!” he exclaimed in frustration. “I am angry. And I’m hurt. And I want to get past it. I want to work on this but I don’t _trust_ you, Sansa. I don’t know how to show you and not have you throw it back in my face like it means nothing to you.”

Sansa took a step closer to him. Then another and another until she was standing before him. He watched her warily with a glint of something that Sansa thought might be hope. She honestly couldn’t say what it was that making her do this because God knew he hadn’t made any of this easy or pleasant. Perhaps if she tried first and it didn’t work out she could say that she at least tried where he hadn’t. Maybe it would give her some kind of leverage in her argument to let her go when this all blew up in their face. 

Maybe it was the guilt she did carry for having hurt him as deeply as she had. 

Maybe it was the show of vulnerability earlier and now. 

Maybe she was just fucking crazy. 

But whatever it was that made her do it, Sansa reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. He tensed and she thought – he’s going to shrug me off any second now. 

But he didn’t. He kept his eyes on her though. And he waited. 

She then slid her hand down over his bicep, forearm and then to his hand which she grasped. 

“You start small,” she said. “Like that.”

She thought he’d let her hand go or at the very least ask her to come back to the house and hold hands on the way there, but he didn’t. No, Jon pulled her into him instead and buried his face in her neck. He breathed her in and held her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe. 

Okay, _that_ she hadn’t expected. 

He released her, looking shaken, and wouldn’t look at her directly. “Why don’t we get changed and go out to eat,” he murmured. 

“Okay,” she chirped and when he didn’t move she figured he was waiting for her so she started for the house and heard him fall into step behind her.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another hard chapter to write...Thanks, Jon! LOL

Sandor sat outside on his porch cleaning his gun wondering how the Little Bird and Jon were doing, and thinking about his earlier conversation with Tormund.

_“I see things haven’t much changed for you,” Tormund said as soon as Sandor had returned to the house after Jon and Sansa had left._

_Sandor arched a brow at him. “Meaning?”_

_“Right back to being Sansa’s little lap dog.”_

_Sandor laughed. “Funny that. I remember a time when you could have been considered the same.”_

_Tormund shaken his head emphatically. He was red in the face. “Not like you. Never like you. You forget that I know how you’d wept for her. And that I know about that picture of her in your bureau drawer you stole after her funeral.”_

_Sandor’s amusement evaporated. “What does it matter to you? I do my job same as you. How I feel or don’t feel about the little bird is none of your business.”_

_“She’s a traitor,” Tormund spat. “She shouldn’t be back here. She should have stayed gone if that’s what she wanted.”_

_“I’d be careful if I were you, Tormund. What you’re saying could get you in a sight more trouble with Jon than the feelings you think I harbor for Sansa. He’ll not put up with you disrespecting her. Didn’t he make that clear?”_

_Tormund made a sound of disgust and stormed off. He’d seen Arya then, standing in the doorway watching them with her lips pursed together. Sandor narrowed his eyes at her, daring her silently to say something to him. He had no respect for the little bitch, not anymore._

_Arya glared back and then turned around and stormed off in the same direction that Tormund had left in._

The conversation hadn’t settled well with Sandor and he found himself doing something he didn’t do much of: worrying.

What did it mean for the Little Bird if Jon’s men were not pleased at all by her return? What did it mean for Jon, too? Would there be dissension in the ranks as a result? Or would they eventually get over it – especially if the pair came back home from the Quiet Isle getting along a sight better than they’d been when they’d left?

He supposed it stood to reason that they felt betrayed. Tormund had said she was a traitor, and Sandor could see how in their eyes she was. They were loyal to Jon and did as he bid. They looked to him for direction. They thought Sansa was the same way, forgetting that she wasn’t one of Jon’s minions. She was his wife.

It was just the way that these things went though. Some women, like Cersei and even Arya had power, but women like Sansa – kind, gentle women who didn’t engage in the fray of battle and business – were coddled and protected. Ned had coddled and protected her before Jon, and Jon had carried on the mantle. His men had done the same. Even Sandor had. Not that it was a bad thing to have done. It wasn’t. Just that now, with her having lied and tricked them all, they saw it as having done them wrong as well as Jon.

Plus, they had all seen Jon as a shell of a man.

Sandor just saw it differently and felt about it differently than the rest of them, but that was no big surprise. As Sansa's guard, he often felt as though he was a bit outside the other men. 

Ned Stark had hired him to guard Sansa when she was but seventeen. He'd been twenty-eight then and looking for direction. He'd taken odd jobs here and there and had stumbled into the Stark organization after helping one of Ned's minions with some deliveries. He'd been introduce to Ned and was surprised to have found that an extensive background check had been done on him. He'd rather felt that was a bit excessive, not to mention an invasion of privacy, but Ned paid well and so he didn't make too much of a fuss. (He might have told Ned to fuck off though). 

He'd moved through the ranks and apparently he'd proved himself worthy and capable for Ned had then asked him to protect Sansa. Sandor still remembered the first time he'd met her. She'd looked at him with wide-eyed wonder. He'd thought it was burns that covered most of the side of his face. That had been thanks to a stupid prank hid brother had pulled with fireworks, the sadistic fuck. She admitted later that it had been that at first, but it was also the sheer massive size of him. “If I hadn’t known any better, I would have thought you an actual giant,” she told him after. 

He'd watched Jon and Sansa's entire relationship unfold. He could see right along with Sansa the changes in Jon as he'd grown older and deeper enmeshed in the organization. Sandor supposed that was why he probably felt differently than the others, except for maybe Sam who had also known Jon a long time. 

Not that he hadn't been hurt by what Sansa had done. When he'd learned that Sansa was alive right along with Jon he'd been euphoric. He couldn't say when he'd fallen in love with Sansa, but fall he had. Yet he knew his place and it wasn't with her. 

He'd known that she had been deeply unhappy. Where she had once been bright and lovely, it had been as though the light in her had been snuffed out. She was heartbroken. Sandor could see it. And Jon, growing darker and harder every day didn't seem to notice. Sansa's bitch of a sister wasn't helping matters either. The darker Jon got the more Arya seemed to revel in it and even attempt to bring it out in him. Sandor knew that Jon and Arya had always had a special bond, but Jon had been blind for a long time about the feelings Arya harbored for him. He’d been blind to the fact that she’d look for any way to drive a wedge between him and Sansa, and by placing herself as the one who understood him and the things that he needed to do in the organization, it would have appeared she was succeeding. 

Not once though did Sandor think Jon had ever stopped loving Sansa. He still saw the way Jon’s eyes would follow Sansa if she entered a room, how they would soften. She was the sun in his universe. That was why her protection came before everything anything else. 

Did he regret telling Jon what Myrcella had said? If he had known then how it would end up now would he have done it again?

Yes. 

Especially after it came out that Olly had been Myrcella’s lover and the father of her unborn child. The Lannisters hadn’t even known she was pregnant yet. No doubt Myrcella had been looking for a way to drop that bomb on them. If she had even known then….

Okay, so maybe there was some regret. But what wouldn’t a man do for love? 

The more he thought now of her request the night before to help her escape, the more he thought that maybe it was something he could do after all. Call it love, call it duty, or call it loyalty to his first boss – whatever label there was to put on it, Sandor didn’t care. All he knew was that for a long time he had been Sansa’s guard – her shield – and he would stay that way. If things didn’t work out between Jon and Sansa, if Jon wouldn’t let her go out of some need to punish her for leaving him and he continued on this path of lashing out at her, well…

Well, Sandor would help the Little Bird escape her cage again. And if he sensed that things were going to go south here for her, he would take her away before Jon’s mindless henchmen and Sansa’s bitch sister did anything to harm her. 

Such a thing was considered akin to treason in this world, but shit…what were the alternatives? Sansa end up dead by one of Jon’s men or Arya? Or this time Sansa doesn’t pretend she’d taken her own life and actually does. 

xxxxxxx

Jon didn’t know how to proceed. For the second time that day he found himself not knowing what to say to his wife. Or what to do. They sat across from each other in a crowded dive of a restaurant that they’d been to a million times, and Jon sat there watching her look over the menu even though in one glance he could see it hadn’t changed since the last time they’d been there. 

It bothered him to think that she could have forgotten what was on it when this was her favorite place. What others things had she forgotten? She said she’d thought of him every day, but was that true? She’d said she had been on a couple dates…

Jon clenched his jaw, reminding himself to keep his temper in check. He hadn’t been doing a very good job of that. Instead, he’d racked up more reasons for Robb and Ned to have wanted his head. 

“Did I hurt you earlier?” he asked. 

She peered over the menu at him and all he could see were her eyes. Then she lowered the menu to the table and he saw that she was frowning. “Which time?” she asked. 

He sucked in a breath as shame filled him. “When I pushed you against the wall.”

“No, but you scared me.”

Fuck. 

“Don’t you dare look surprised by that,” she said and pointed at him. “It’s what you wanted. All part of your secret plan to punish me, remember?”

“I don’t,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to punish you. I said that in a moment of anger.”

“A moment, huh? Do you think you could ballpark how long these ‘moments’ last? A day? A week? A month? You’ve been having a ‘moment’ since I walked into my kitchen in Wales.”

“Not your kitchen.”

“Just because you don’t want it to be doesn’t mean that it wasn’t, Jon. I didn’t slip into the box marked Sansa that you created for me for the past three years.”

“It hurts,” he admitted. “It hurts to think of you somewhere else having a whole life while I was…”

Now it was her turn to look uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat and then thankfully, the waitress came over to take their order. Jon fully expected her to get the meal she always got when they came here, but she didn’t. She got something different. Jon ordered the same thing he always did. 

He thought of his English professor in college. How he was always pushing his class to look for symbolism. Well, if this was his English class and Jon was reading a book about a man and a woman who had been apart for years, and were now out to dinner at the place they had frequented often and one got something other than what they usually got and the other got the same, Jon would think that meant that one had changed and one had stayed the same. 

Except he wasn’t the same. He had changed. And not for the better. He just didn’t want to have changed. And he didn’t want Sansa to have changed. Not without him. But she had. He wanted things to be as they had been and had thought, irrationally, that maybe they could have. 

He knew that was unrealistic. There was too much between them for things to ever be the same as they had been. He’d changed without her first and it had driven her away. Now when he thought of how she might have changed it made him feel further apart from her, and that scared him. 

It was a crushing blow to realize that he had made her unhappy enough to seek life elsewhere. That he had become someone she didn’t want to be with. That right now he was _still_ that person she didn’t want to be with. Not that he’d done anything to help that. He hadn’t exactly been a gem. Sandor had warned him that if he was looking to punish her he’d end up punishing himself. The more monstrous he became the further he drove her away and the more frightened he became that he was losing her. Yet he’d already lost her and kept on proving to her why she’d left in the first place by the way he lashed out. When he was afraid he felt backed into a corner and his instinct, much like Sansa’s was to fight back. 

This wasn’t working. Perhaps that had been his true fear all along. That this wouldn’t work. That they could be lost to each other forever. His chest tightened and he felt as though the walls were closing in on him. Oh God. Not again. Not another panic attack. 

“I need air,” he gasped and pushed out of the booth. He practically ran to the door and heaved in deep gulps of breath. He sat down on the bench outside and put his head between his legs the way the doctor had told him to. 

“Jon?” Sansa had followed him. 

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine. Just go back inside.”

Instead she sat down next to him. “What’s going on?” 

“I get…sometimes I get panic attacks. I felt like one was coming on and I just had to get out of there.”

“You get panic attacks?”

He sat up, his breathing evening out finally though he had broken out into a cold sweat. “Well, you know, I have a lot of job-related stress.” He meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. 

Sansa looked at him, her lips in a thin disapproving line. “When did that start? Wait! Let guess. After I left?”

He shook his head and sighed. “No, Sansa, they started before.”

“And you never told me.”

“And I never told you. I didn’t want you to worry.”

“Well, that’s just perfect,” she muttered and got to her feet. “I’ll go and see if they can pack up the food to go.”

Jon reached out, intent on grabbing her and then stopped himself and dropped his arm to his side. He stood. “Sansa, wait.”

She turned around looking pissed. “What?”

“I’m…I’m scared,” he whispered. This was scary, too. Admitting he was scared. Admitting he felt a weakness.

She came closer. “Do you need a doctor? Are you having pain in your arm?”

He shook his head. “It’s not that. I’m scared that this won’t work. That we won’t work.”

“Gee, I can’t imagine what made you think that.”

“I’m…” He heaved a deep breath for courage. “I’m sorry.”

“For what exactly?”

“For how I’ve treated you since I came to get you.”

She shook her head. 

“You don’t believe me,” he said, nodding. “I don’t blame you. Listen, I’m not going touch you again.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I mean it this time. I won’t. I won’t touch you unless you want me to. Unless I have your permission.”

She regarded him thoughtfully. And warily. “I don’t know if I’m stupid or just naïve for actually thinking you might mean that.”

“I won’t.” He came closer so that they were only inches apart. He wanted to ask if he could hold her or at least hold her hand. There was more he wanted to say, too: _Don’t give up on me. I love you. You were the best thing that ever happened to me and I don’t know how to let you go. I want to be a better man. I need help. Help me._

But the words were trapped in his throat. Besides, without action words were kind of meaningless weren’t they?

She stepped away before he could ask if he could hold her hand. “Let’s go before they think we’ve skipped out,” she murmured and headed back inside.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please, please, please be kind to each other! I understand that there are differing views and I am trying, for the most part, to stay out of discussions. I just really want you guys to be respectful of each other, okay? Thank you! :)

Sansa kicked the covers off after two hours of trying to sleep and not being able to. The nap she’d taken earlier had probably ruined sleep for her. That and the man down the hall. She wondered if he was sleeping well. 

On nights like this when they would visit the Quiet Isle, Sansa would go up to the widow’s walk on top of the house and watch the ocean for a while before going back to bed. It never failed to do the trick. So, she climbed out of bed and pulled on the pair of socks she’d tossed to the floor earlier before climbing into bed. 

She made her out of the bedroom quietly, then down the hall and to the door that led up to the attic. Then from there, she climbed the ladder to the widow’s walk. “Son of a bitch!” she exclaimed when she saw Jon standing there. 

He laughed – actually _laughed_ – and bent over to hold out his hand to her. “Careful, sweetling, don’t fall now.”

Had she just walked into The Twilight Zone? Had she really just seen Jon _laugh_? She placed her hand in his and allowed him to help her climb the rest of the way up. When she attempted to pull her hand from his he held on and she looked at him. 

“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled and let her hand go. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” she said as a gust of wind whipped around them. She shivered. She should have brought her robe. Jon took off the light jacket he was wearing and draped it over her shoulders. 

She looked at him in shock. “Thank you,” she said, feeling a bit like a fish out of water. “Um, won’t you be cold though?”

“When I get cold I’ll go back inside.”

She nodded and put her arms through the sleeves. His jacket was warm from his body heat and it smelled like him. She had always loved when he would lend her a jacket or his scarf or any of the number of things that served to keep her warm when she needed a little something extra. She’d loved having his scent so close to her and feeling his body heat. 

She wondered if she should tell him that she’d taken one of his t-shirts when she’d left and spritzed it with his cologne. She had used it as pajamas for a long time until it had just gotten too gross to wear. 

“You look like you’re contemplating something,” he said. “What is it?”

Sansa bit her lip and looked out towards the water as though it held the answer there. She turned back to Jon who was watching her with his brow furrowed and she sighed. “Before I left…”

He cleared his throat and looked down. “Yes?”

“Before I left I took one of your shirts and spritzed it with your cologne. I wore it every night when I changed into my pajamas. It was my pajamas. Except I wasn’t very smart about it and I wore it while watching TV and having late night snacks and it eventually got a little gross. When I couldn’t smell your cologne anymore I finally admitted to myself that I had to wash it. People looked at me rather strange at the laundromat when I started to cry as I was holding it in my hand in front of the open washer. I still wore it, though it didn’t smell like you anymore, until it got holey and so threadbare a gust of wind could have caused it to fall apart.”

She couldn’t read his expression, though there wasn’t much to see of it in the dark. The moon was only half full so it wasn’t as though there was much light to be had. His non-reaction, at least the verbal kind, left her feeling uneasy though and so she gestured to him and said, “I just thought you might want to know that.” And then she turned away from him and went to sit down cross-legged and faced the water. 

Jon sat down beside her and Sansa waited with some trepidation for what he would say. Or do. 

“Thank you,” he said finally, “for telling me that.”

She nodded and played with the zipper of his jacket. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

Well, that was something she supposed. 

“It has occurred to me that we’ll never get anywhere if we think everything that comes out of each other’s mouths to be lies,” he said. 

“Agreed. What do you propose we do to rectify that then?”

He chuckled. “I haven’t a clue.”

She frowned thoughtfully and dropped her hands into her lap. “Well, you are the mob boss here, Jon. You’re supposed to sniff out lies.”

“It’s a lot easier to do that when it’s not your wife.”

“Shouldn’t it be easier?”

“Not when your heart is engaged. Emotions make things difficult.”

“Oh, yeah, those pesky things,” she murmured and drew her legs up so that she could rest her chin on her knees. “So, barring the fact that I did tell the mother of all lies by doing what I did, why did you think that when I apologized I was lying?”

“To manipulate me. To lull me into a false sense of security. To make me soften.”

She turned her head to look at him, letting her legs fall back down. “Softening is bad?”

He sighed and kept his gaze straight ahead. “It is if you’re manipulating me and lulling me into a false sense of security.”

“What would I have to manipulate you for? Or lull you into a false sense of security for? That would mean you had something I wanted if that were the case and so what is it you think I want that you have?”

“Freedom.”

“So you admit that I’m essentially a captive then?” she asked. She did not want to lose her temper again, but she was. He’d just pissed her off with that comment. 

“I didn’t mean it that way, Sansa.”

“Then how did you mean it?” she demanded. 

“I meant that if you made me believe that we could fix this between us and I gave you more…well, if I gave you more freedom – the kind you had before, for example – then you might get it in your head to take off again.”

“Hmmm…interesting. That would probably entail some seduction on my part.”

“Are you contemplating it?” he asked, sounding as though he was half joking and half incredulous. 

“No, I’m just working that out in my head. What doing that would entail. You do realize you just made me sound as though I’m one of your enemies, right? Manipulate you, lull you into a false sense of security…that sounds like mob lingo. Did I ever do things like that before?”

“No, but you also did, as you said, tell the mother of all lies, Sansa. How am I supposed to believe anything you say after that?”

“So I guess we’re back to the same problem with no trust between us.”

“Why are you sorry?” he asked softly. “Tell me why you said you were sorry.”

“Because I saw the pain that you were in when you said that I broke you. Because even though I didn’t think my ‘death’ would hurt you as deeply as it did, I do understand that making someone believe what I made you believe was harmful. And in learning that it did hurt you it hurt me. I caused you pain and that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m not that cold and callous.” She had the ends of his jacket balled up in her fists now, and she swallowed past the lump in her throat. 

“Sansa, I…it bothers me that you think your death wouldn’t have mattered to me. Did you truly think that I was falling out of love you? Or that I already had?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What did I say to make you think that?”

“You didn’t say anything that was the problem. It was like you weren’t even there anymore. Did your men know that you had panic attacks? Did Arya?"

He was silent for a long time which pretty much answered her question. Finally, he whispered, “Yes”, but it wasn’t as though he had to verbally say it at that point. 

“See?” she whispered. “You couldn’t even tell me that.”

“I didn’t want you to worry, and I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t do my job and protect you—”

“Your job was not just to protect me, Jon! Not above keeping yourself healthy and sane!” Sansa scrambled to her feet, needing to get away from him. 

“I beg to differ,” he argued and got to his feet. “I made a promise—”

“Fuck your promises to my father and Robb! I don’t care about your goddamn promises to them. I release you from them! That is exactly why I didn’t think it would matter to you if I was gone. Because then you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping your fucking promises to them anymore. You could just live your life and I would be out of it.” 

“You honestly think that was it? That it was just my promise to them that I had to keep you safe?”

“Yes! I feel like I’ve said this before. Jesus fuck, you don’t listen to me!” She waved her arm, gesturing to him as she spoke. “You’ve got the narrative in your head already, I don’t matter. What I think now, what I thought then, what I feel now, what I felt then, what I want now and what I wanted then, what I need now and what I needed then does not matter to you. You’ve got this script in your thick head and it’s all about you and what you want and what you need and what you feel. As long as what I want and need and feel match what you want and need and feel then it’s fine. Is that what you want, Jon? Do you want _me_ , or do you want some Stepford Wife version of me?”

He held up his hands. “I want you. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Prove it.”

“How?”

“Give me the freedom to choose.”

“Sansa—”

“Listen to me. Can you just for once listen to me?”

He heaved in a deep breath and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or if he was upset. “Go ahead.”

“You want to try, so I will try. But if it doesn’t work out, if it’s clear that we just can’t do it, then I want you to let me go. That’s what I want.”

“Sansa,” he said and it sounded like a warning. 

“You don’t understand, Jon. If you can’t grant me that then we’re already done. It won’t ever work because I won’t be able to forgive you for not giving me a choice. I’ll just see you as my keeper and not my husband. If you want me to try, to sincerely try, then you have to grant me that freedom.”

“How is this not a manipulation?” he hissed. “Otherwise you weren’t going to try at all, is that what you’re telling me?”

“I was, but only because you were forcing me to. Not because I actually thought it would work.”

“And now you’ll magically change your mind about that because I give you the ability to leave me again?”

“You giving me a choice would make me respect you a hell of a lot more. It would show me that the man I fell in love with was still in there somewhere and if he is in there, then maybe there is something to salvage.”

He looked in the direction of the water and she could see him sorting this out in his head. 

“One more thing,” she said and he looked sharply at her. “You have to talk to me. Share with me. I won’t go back to being in the dark.”

“Sansa, there are things I can’t tell you—”

“There have to be some things that you can. Find them. You knew the things to tell me before, but then you stopped altogether. I won’t go back to the way things were. If you want to try then that’s part of it.”

She imagined his jaw was clenched so tight it might break. “All right then,” he said tersely. “I want something then too.”

“What?”

“The things you’d confide in Sandor about – about me. I want it to stop. You have a problem with me, I want you to come to me. No more telling Sandor about our problems.”

Okay, that sounded easy in theory, but Sansa had a feeling that until Jon and she were on better footing (if such a thing was possible) then that would be harder than she thought. However, if it got him to admit to giving her the choice to leave… “Done.”

He took a step toward her. “This means you actually have to try. You can’t pretend. You can’t just give up when it gets hard because it’ll be hard.” His voice cracked. He was upset. And worried; she could hear it in his voice. “That’s what I want from you,” he said. “I want you to actually try. Not be looking for an out just because I’ve granted it. The good, the bad, and the ugly – it’s all going to come out.”

“Hasn’t it already?” 

“I mean it.”

“But you don’t get to decide when enough is enough.”

“But you get to?”

“If it were up to you, you would never decide so I would end up staying.”

“Doesn’t that tell you something about how much I want you?”

“To love me or possess me? There is a difference.” She stuck out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”

“I want one more thing,” he said. 

“Crap on a crayfish, Jon, you’re really pushing it. I mean, I’m here aren’t I? _Because you kidnapped me._ What more do you fucking want?”

“I want to share your bed. I’m not talking sex. I won’t take you against your will, but I want to share your bed. We’re going to have to anyway when we return to show them that we’re a united front… You can put blankets between us if you want, I don’t care. I just want to be next to you.”

Sansa sighed and she dropped her arm back to her side. He was pushing it. But, she supposed, in the grand scheme of what he’d be granting her… She held her hand out. “Fine.”

He stared at her hand for a long time and then, finally, he shook it. 

“Don’t forget that you keep your word,” she said. 

“I won’t forget.”

It was a deal.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone! This one took a bit for me to write. I started it yesterday and then had to sleep on it.

Sansa felt buoyed by the deal she and Jon had struck. He certainly kept her on her toes for he never seemed to make anything easy. Or at least he didn’t _now_. Once, he hadn’t been so difficult. He’d been, dare she say it, receptive to her. To listening. She wondered if it was just her he had difficulty really hearing or if this was something across the board now. He had to listen to his men…right? Or had he become a true “Godfather” like character who thought himself above listening to others? It would certainly explain his God-like attitude with her. 

As she climbed back into bed she felt that now perhaps she could sleep. The two ton weight on her shoulders since Jon had kidnapped her had lightened a bit. Not completely, but a bit. At least now she felt a little less like a prisoner. However, she was still very aware of the fact that while Jon might have shook her hand in the spirit of making a deal and giving her his word, if/when the day came that she told him it wasn’t working she knew he would not make leaving easy. At all. In fact, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t. 

But, for now, she’d take this small victory. She’d take him at his word and his handshake and pretend she trusted him to follow through for maybe if she at least saw she was putting her trust in him, in this, he’d show some leniency. 

And that meant she had to try, too. Honestly, a rather large part of her just thought of going through the motions of trying. There was just too much between them. She didn’t think Jon would ever actually be able to forgive her, and the fact remained that she did not want part of this world. It was definitely not a world she wanted to bring a child into. 

But, baby steps. She had at least gotten him to agree to a few terms of her own, and in the spirit of showing him that she could uphold her end of a deal even if she was wary of his ability to do the same, she would try. 

Problem was, she wasn’t sure exactly what _trying_ meant. Did that mean they kissed? Fucked? She now knew part of it was sleeping in the same bed… 

But how did they do anything physical when she was pretty certain that he was still so pissed at her that touching her in any kind of intimate way was probably not on his list of things he most wanted to do? And she certainly wasn’t in that place with him right now. There was the fact that he did hug her earlier as though he’d never wanted to let her go, as though she was the only thing tethering him to the Earth. And he made it obvious pre-deal that letting her leave was not an option. Yet how could that be love? It felt as though it had crossed over into something dark and obsessive. 

What was it he had said? Oh, yes: _“If there had been a body and a grave I would have dug you up and crawled into it with you.”_

That seemed a bit much. Had Jon always felt that….deeply? Was that the right _word_ for it? Or, was it again obsessive? Had she brought that out in him when she’d made him think her dead? Had she actually broke him as he said she had? What did he actually want from her? Was it just to know that she could not and would not go anywhere, ever, or did he actually want her love? Did he even love her anymore? Or was it pride that made him want to possess her? Did _he_ even know at this point? 

So lost in her thoughts was she that she jumped when the door opened the overhead light came on. She bolted upright and her eyes widened when she saw Jon coming in with a pillow under his arm and his suitcase in his hand. He put the suitcase on the floor next to hers by the door and then stopped when he turned and found her gaping at him. 

“What?” he asked. 

“So, uh, the sleeping in the same bed thing is happening tonight?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Why not indeed?” 

“We did shake on it, Sansa. Are you looking to renege on our deal already because I’d be happy to—”

“Nope!” she chirped and patted the empty spot beside her. “Climb aboard.”

He looked somewhere between amused and exasperated with her as he came over to the side of the bed and put his pillow down. He was wearing black boxers and a black t-shirt and he was barefoot. 

Sansa moved to give him more room which translated into practically spilling off the side of the bed. 

“I’m not going to bite, Sansa,” he muttered as he got himself situated. “We slept together this afternoon.”

“But I didn’t know we were. I was sleeping.”

“You’re going to be sleeping again soon.”

She sighed. “Jon, don’t pretend you don’t know how this is different. If it wasn’t then you wouldn’t have made it part of our deal.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right,” he said quietly and laid down facing her. “Do you want to implement some sort of wall down the middle of the bed?”

She shook her head as she stared up at the ceiling and laughed a little. “No. I like to think that we can be adults…” She turned her head and looked at him with a frown. “Somewhat like adults…”

He shot her a look and she smiled prettily at him before looking back up at the ceiling. “You gonna get the light?” she asked pointedly. 

He chuckled under his breath. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m not old enough to be a ma’am. I’m only twenty-eight.”

He chuckled again as he climbed out of the bed and got the light. She could make him out just enough as he climbed back in, this time laying on his back. “I thought this might help build some trust between us,” he said softly. “Plus, I thought it might help us to remember how it was before.”

“Remembering isn’t a problem,” she replied. 

He sighed. “I know. But you know how they say your body remembers things?”

“Muscle memory?”

“Yes, that.”

“So then I should expect you to hog all the covers and practically push me out of the bed by morning?”

He snorted. “I think you’re remembering that wrong, sweetling. You always hogged the covers and you kicked me in your sleep. I would end up hanging off the bed to avoid getting kicked.”

She sniffed. “Nope. I refuse to believe such lies.”

He laughed softly. “I remember this part, too. Talking and teasing each other in bed. I wanted to see if we could get that back.”

Maybe he did love her. Maybe it wasn’t just obsession. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

“I must admit though, this is a bit awkward,” she said. “Don’t you think?”

“A little.” She practically heard him shrug. 

“Do you think it’ll be like a movie and tomorrow we’ll wake up entwined or something?”

“Maybe not tonight…”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he even loved her anymore. Or was this just muscle memory, too? But she was tired now, tired of talking at least – who knew if she’d actually be able to sleep with him beside her. 

“Goodnight, Sansa,” he said softly. 

“Goodnight, Jon.”

xxxxxxx

Jon woke up to Sansa not in bed and the scent of coffee and bacon. One thing they had not done on their way in yesterday was stop at the grocery store to get food, so Sansa must have gone out to get it while he was sleeping. This begged the question of what time was it? He glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was almost eleven. 

He never slept this late. At least not at home. He used to here though; he slept like the dead at the Quiet Isle. Sansa always let him, too, adamant about him getting the rest he needed. She would use the time to read or go down to the water and swim. He smiled to himself as he thought of how in this place she could always be found near the water. She loved the lake behind their house, but the ocean for her was a special treat. 

After using the bathroom, Jon made his way down the stairs and heard the little radio they’d set up in the kitchen going. Sansa was facing the stove and singing along to the song playing and moving her hips back and forth. He had the urge to go over to her and put his hands on her hips and bury his face in her neck where her hair hung loose about her shoulders. 

It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d done something like that. She wore her new pink yoga pants and a white tank top and he found himself wondering if her nipples would be hard the way they’d been last night. It had been chilly for her, so he knew why they’d been hard but it hadn’t stopped from stirring his blood to see it. 

She turned and saw him and jumped. “Sonofabitch!”

He laughed, just as he had last night when he’d scared her. 

“Stop scaring me!” she exclaimed. 

He just grinned at her and then nodded to the bacon sizzling in the cast iron skillet. “What time did you get up?”

“A couple hours ago,” she said with a shrug. “I woke up a ravenous beast and so I went down to the market to get a few things. Coffee?”

“Of course.” He sat down at the island where two forks and a bottle of ketchup sat and watched her pour him a steaming cup of coffee. The sun shone brightly into the kitchen and he frowned when he noticed some paint flaking off on the walls near the sink. “I’m going to need to put a coat of paint on the wall there,” he said nodding to it when she looked at him in question. 

She looked over at it. “Looks like. I can help if you want.”

“We’ll worry about it later. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah…” she said as poured herself a cup of coffee and placed it on the island. “It took me a while to fall asleep though. You?”

“Same,” he said and found himself just staring at her. She was just so lovely. And he’d missed this. Missed her. 

She got a faraway look in her eye and then went over to the skillet. She turned over the bacon and then poured a measuring cup of what looked like scrambled eggs into it the skillet next to the one with the bacon. The sizzling sound of eggs hitting a hot surface rent the air and Sansa began to hum along to the new tune on the radio. 

“We always had fun here, didn’t we?” he blurted out after watching her move the egg mixture around with a spatula. 

She looked over her shoulder at him. “We did.”

He took a deep breath before asking, “Did you…did you have a place like this in England to go to?”

She looked surprised by the question and then a pleased gleam lit up her eyes. “Bath,” she said. “I really liked visiting Bath.”

“I suppose I don’t need to ask if you took to the hot springs.”

She laughed a little. “No, you don’t have to ask. They were glorious. I highly recommend them.”

“Maybe one day we could take a trip there.”

She fell silent and Jon tried not to let that bother him. Tried not to see it as her silently telling him no, they would not because she didn’t plan to stick around for that long. 

He hadn’t wanted to agree to her terms on having the freedom to decide when enough was enough. To choose to leave him if she so desired. He didn’t trust Sansa not to decide to take off as soon as things got a little hairy – and with the way things were going they were bound to be. 

He’d also known that if he hadn’t agreed she wouldn’t try at all. He still wasn’t certain that she would now, though she had seemed to warm to him a bit more. As he had warmed to her. He feared though that it was a trick, that she would lull him into a false sense of security and then bring the hammer down at the first sign of troubled waters and say she was done. 

Jon wanted to be a man of his word. And that was exactly what he’d done: he’d given her his word. But when it came down to it, could he let her go? Especially if he felt that perhaps she was just biding her time until she _could_ go? So if she was tricking him, perhaps he was tricking her too. 

He could admit that it didn’t settle well with him. It made him feel rather off kilter. And guilty. Christ, he hated that feeling. This was _Sansa_. The woman he had thought was his partner for life. The woman he _wanted_ to be his partner for life. And that was precisely why he didn’t want to let her go. He just felt so lost, had felt that way for a long time now. 

His _monstrosity_ hadn’t been what Ned had taught him. The monster had snuck up on him, crept in and burrowed inside him. He had stretched to accommodate it until it became a part of him. It kept him alive. It kept his men safe. It kept the Lannisters at bay. It made him successful. 

He hadn’t been as acutely aware of that monster as he was now. 

And Sansa was his salvation. She was the one that could save him. He just had to let her. And she had to want to try. He wanted to make her try, make her want to try, and God knew he’d done everything he could in the past – almost forty-eight hours now – to make her. 

_But you can’t make someone do anything. And you can’t make them want to_ , the little voice in his head reminded him. 

He sighed. That was true. But hell – he would find some way to try. 

She placed his plate down before him and then placed hers down and sat across from him. She grabbed the ketchup and poured a glob of it onto her eggs and then on the side of her plate and then grabbed one of the forks and began to tuck in.

Jon watched her, his heart clenching in his chest as he watched her. _Love me_ , he thought desperately, _love me please. I’m so lost, Sansa, and I need you to bring me back._

She swallowed her bite and placed her fork down and looked at him with a brow arched. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?”

Jon slid his arm across the island and opened his hand. She looked surprised and a little nervous as she placed her hand tentatively in his. His hand closed around hers and he brought it to his mouth and kissed the back of it. _I love you_ , he thought. _I **love** you._

Then he released her hand and together they tucked into their breakfast.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so the first two pics are of Perkins Cove and the third is of Marginal Way. The last is their house in Ogunquit. 
> 
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/perkins%20cove_zpsldxu5nnn.jpg.html)
> 
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/perkins%20cove%202_zps9q2xigir.jpg.html)
> 
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/marginal%20way_zps3xlbojj3.jpg.html)
> 
> [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/lost%20and%20found%20house%203_zpsokicwwvi.jpg.html)

_Did you fuck her yet?_

Jon’s jaw clenched when he read the text from Arya. It pissed him off, which was no doubt her intent. 

“Something wrong?” 

Jon looked up at Sansa who had just stepped out of the convenience store she’d just been in. After breakfast, Jon had asked Sansa what she wanted to do. He’d fully expected her to say she wanted to spend some time in the water, but she’d surprised him by wanting instead to take a walk along Marginal Way and head into Perkins Cove. 

Marginal Way was a two-and-a-half mile paved path along the coast of Ogunquit’s waters. There was never an instance in which the ocean was not in sight, and there several benches along the path for people to sit and just take in the crashing waves below. There were even a couple small rocky beaches one could access for wading in the water or just sitting on the sand. Also, there were several houses along the path and when he and Sansa had decided to set up camp in Ogunquit, they had looked at some of the houses. However, none had quite felt like home as the Quiet Isle did. 

Marginal Way had two entrances. The first was in Perkins Cove in which there were restaurants, shops, and inns. It was also where residents of Ogunquit could keep their small boats and dinghy’s. There was also a few cruises that took tourists out on the water to see a few historical sites along the coast. It was one of Sansa’s favorite things to do even if she had been on it a billion times and could recite the information by rote. It was of course not about that for her, but about being out on the water. The faster the boat went, the bigger her smile would get. Several times they had discussed purchasing a boat to keep at the Quiet Isle, but since Sansa preferred most often to be in the water, they’d decided to simply take a boat ride when the mood struck. 

The other entrance to Marginal Way was in downtown Ogunquit. It was easy to zip down Marginal Way to visit the shops in Perkins Cove, perhaps grab some lunch, and then zip back to the downtown and do even more shopping. Plus, Ogunquit Beach was a stone’s throw from downtown. Jon had always preferred to stay on their little beach at the Quiet Isle, but Sansa enjoyed being around people sometimes and would want to visit the beach. 

It didn’t surprise Jon that what Sansa wanted to do first was walk Marginal Way into Perkins Cove. When he and Sansa had been dating and Sansa had taken him to Ogunquit for the first time, all he had heard about was Marginal Way and Perkins Cove. She had even pointed out to him where she’d wanted a man to propose to her (on a bridge surrounded by trees and overlooking the water). It was something that Jon had filed away and then hadn’t followed through on. He had been so eager (and scared too) to propose to her that he’d done it during Christmas at the Starks. At that point in time there was no way he would have been able to wait for spring when the snow had cleared and he could take her to that spot. 

Sansa hadn’t minded that he hadn’t proposed to her there, but it was something that had often stuck in Jon’s mind. He promised her that when it was time to renew their vows he would “propose” to her there. 

The fresh air coupled with her “happy place” had brought the light back in her eyes and a rosy hue to her cheeks. Even if at the moment her eyes were shrouded by sunglasses. Now she was looking at him expectantly, having obviously noticed his irritation when he’d read Arya’s text. 

He shoved his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. “It’s nothing. Just business stuff.”

“Something go wrong?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. 

“Just a late shipment.” He felt a twitch of guilt for lying to her. The idea was to be honest with one another and he wasn’t exactly upholding that. Yet no good would come from Sansa being told about Arya’s text. It might lead her to asking about other things that he just wasn’t prepared to tell her. 

Not ever. 

“Oh,” she said and then handed him a bottled water. “I got you one too.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. 

“Do you need to call Tormund or…?” she asked. 

“No, no, it’s being handled.”

She nodded and then looked off and then back at him. She bit her bottom lip and looked at him sheepishly. His hands itched to reach out and pull her in close. “You want to go for a boat ride, don’t you sweet girl?”

She wrinkled her nose and looked adorably ashamed, as though she was afraid he would say no. He smiled. “Of course we can go.”

She beamed at him and then made to take off, and knowing her leave him completely in the dust in her eagerness. “San?”

She stopped and turned, looking at him in question. 

He cleared his throat. “Do you think we could…? I mean, if it’s okay, do you think I could hold your hand?”

In answer she held out her hand to him and Jon took it as though it was a life preserver. 

xxxxxxxxxx

Sandor’s bad feeling had increased. That morning when he’d shown up for the shipment that was coming in, he had found Tormund and Arya already there. Grenn and Yoren were there too, but they weren’t standing with Tormund and Arya, heads bents together as if plotting something. And that’s what it looked like. It’s what it felt like to Sandor. 

His instincts had served him well, as well as Sansa and Jon, over the years. Plus, with all that was going on, it didn’t take a rocket science that the two most pissed by Sansa’s return looked to be commiserating together. Or conspiring. It felt like conspiring. 

He walked over to them. “Is this a meeting we all need to be a part of?”

The pair of them glared at him. Tormund looked back at Arya who said nothing, and her expression certainly gave nothing away. Tormund walked off without a word and Sandor narrowed his eyes Arya. “Secrets?”

She rolled her eyes. “Someone’s a little paranoid.”

“Am I?”

She laughed and shook her head. “You just slipped right back into your guard dog role, huh? She’s not even here and you’re already looking for threats.”

“I don’t really think I need to look for them. I think they’re quite obvious,” Sandor said as he stroked his beard. 

Arya sighed and faced the crates that were being driven in. “You know, if things don’t work out for Sansa and Jon you might finally have your shot with her, Sandor.”

“That right?”

“It’s not like it’s a big secret you’re in love with her.”

“Do you think it’s a big secret that you’re in love with Jon?”

If he hadn’t been watching so closely he might have missed the way her jaw clenched and body stiffened. It happened so fast though, and in the next instant she was back to looking cool and collected. 

“Jon won’t let her go, you know that,” Sandor said. He thought perhaps if he could provoke her anger she might let spill whatever it was she was thinking…plotting. However, he also did believe what he said. Arya said nothing and so Sandor decided to try another tactic. “And now that Sansa is back with Jon I’ve no doubt they’ll be able to start over again. Just as he never stopped loving her, I don’t think she ever stopped loving him either.”

He wasn’t even finished speaking and Arya was already walking away from him. So he had struck a nerve. Yet that was all he’d been able to gather. What could he tell Jon? Tormund and Arya were talking together and he’d gotten an uneasy feeling about it? Well, yes. He would tell him that. Even if Jon would probably get pissed about the reminder that grief and too much booze had nearly caused him to make the worst mistake of his life. 

xxxxxxxxx

It had been a good day, Sansa decided as she sat on the beach at the Quiet Isle. She’d gotten reacquainted with Ogunquit and she and Jon had not argued once. 

_The night is young_ , she thought as she scooped up some sand in her hand and watched it trickle out of her fingers. It was dusk now, her favorite time of night and the rhythmic crash of the waves against the shore soothed her. 

She and Jon had had dinner in town and though it was not as awkward as previous meals had been there was still the feeling of not quite knowing what to say to one another. It was odd actually considering there were so many things to say. To talk about. But it was nice to have had a reprieve from the emotional upheaval of the past forty-eight hours. 

No wonder she felt completely wrung out emotionally. She thought of her friends back home and wondered if there was some way she could let them know she was all right. Or at least find out what was going on after Jon had hauled her back to the States. 

Perhaps she could convince Jon to let her contact one of her friends. 

“Got you a beer.”

Sansa looked up at Jon and thought, _Speak of the devil and he appears…_

She grabbed the proffered open bottle of beer and took a sip. “Thanks.”

He sat down beside her and she noticed he was barefoot. “Nice night,” he said as he looked up at the sky. 

“Jon, I’ve been thinking…”

“This should be good.”

She shot him a look. “You’re hilarious.”

He grinned. “What is it?”

“I want to contact one of my friends back ho – in Wales.”

He took a long pull of his beer and was silent for a while. “Who exactly? That ‘bloke’ you were seeing?”

“No, I was thinking my friend Jeyne.”

“Why?”

Was he kidding? “Because they’re probably worried about me. They’ve no idea what happened to me and could have alerted the authorities by now. Then there are my kids at school who are probably frightened that their teacher has just disappeared into thin air.”

“Yeah, I mean they could think you’re dead by now,” he said dryly. 

“Okay, so even though I probably deserved that you’re still a jackass.”

“What are you going to tell your friend, Sansa?” he asked. That tone he got was back. The Mob Boss tone.

“That I’m safe. That I’m fine. That I had to leave due to a family emergency.”

He took another pull of his beer. “I want to be there when you make the call.”

“ _Why_?” she asked incredulously and angled her body to look at him better. 

He would not look at her, however. He kept his gaze straight ahead at the water. “To make sure you don’t say anything you shouldn’t. Like where you are.”

“They think I’m from Portland. I won’t tell them anything but that.”

“Just the same, I would like to be there when you make the call.”

She looked at him archly. “Why? Do you think I’m going to tell them my estranged husband kidnapped me? I mean, why do you think I would need to send out an SOS, Jon? Unless you think stealing me away the way you did was wrong and might give one cause for alarm.”

“Sansa,” he said warningly. “I told you that you can make the call.”

“With you hovering over me making sure I don’t rat you out. Why else be so afraid of what I might say?”

“Jesus Christ, Sansa!” he shouted and looked at her in exasperation. 

“You couldn’t even get through one day without being a controlling asshole, could you?” she snapped as she got to her feet. She left her beer in the sand and it began to spill out. 

She stomped back to the house wanting more than anything to hit something. Preferably him. 

“Goddamn fucking ass,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she banged inside the house and slammed the door behind her. 

She stormed into the kitchen and grabbed her phone off the counter, intent on calling no matter what he said because _fuck him_ she couldn’t call Jeyne! 

She ran up the stairs to the bedroom and locked herself in the bathroom. She had just started to dial the exchange for the UK when a loud chime went off. She started and looked at her phone. No, wasn’t hers. Her gaze drifted to the sink counter and there it was: Jon’s phone. 

She wasn’t sure what compelled her to grab it and look at the screen. Her need for payback? If he couldn’t afford her any privacy then why let him have any? Whatever the reason, she picked it up and saw a text from Arya on the screen. 

_Well? Did you fuck her yet or what?_

Her stomach dropped and a chill swept over her. She started to shake. Why was Arya asking that? That was kind of…personal. Wasn’t it? Or were her earlier suspicions just making the warning bells go off in her head? Arya had always been a bit crude so maybe this was just her being incredibly nosy and inappropriate? Was she asking for the group?! Did they _all_ want to know?

“Sansa, what the fuck are you doing?” The door rattled as Jon twisted the handle on the other side of the bathroom door. “Sansa, what are you doing? Open the fucking door!”

She got up off the toilet seat, opened the door, and held up his phone. He opened his mouth to no doubt yell at her and she cut him off by asking, “Why is Arya asking if you’ve fucked me yet?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I really wrestled with Jon at the end here. Would he allow her to make the call alone? Would he trust her? I kept getting no, he wouldn't trust her. They are not there yet. Don't worry though. Sansa will have a plan ;)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone! :)

“What are you doing with my phone?” Jon asked and snatched it from Sansa’s hand. 

“You left it in here,” she said with a shrug. “A text came through. I looked at it.”

“You shouldn’t be looking at my phone.”

“And you shouldn’t have to listen in on my phone conversations. Tit for tat, I guess.

He let out a long-suffering sigh. “Sansa—”

“ _Why_ is she asking that, Jon?” 

“Because she’s crude? Because she’s Arya? I don’t know why she’s asking and I don’t particularly like it either.”

Sansa wanted to believe he was just as much in the dark as to why she’d do something like that, but she couldn’t let the nagging feeling go that there was more to it. “Have you figured out that she’s been in love with you for…for _ever_?” she asked point-blank. 

He sighed again. “Yes.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“God no!”

“How did you figure out she’s in love with you?”

“She told me.”

She looked at him as though waiting. “Yeah, and? Can you elaborate on that for me, please?”

“She told me when I started looking for you,” he said, sounding tired. He raked a hand through his hair and then ran it down his face. “I think she thought if she told me how she felt it might change things… might deter me from looking for you. It didn’t.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I told her that I would never stop loving you and even if I never found you I would never remarry.”

Was it wrong to be suspicious of his rather romantic words? It was possible he’d said that to throw her off, make her soften. 

“And how did she take it?”

“Not well at first, but she agreed we wouldn’t speak of it again and we didn’t.”

“Just like that,” Sansa said. 

“Just like that.”

“Did she make a pass at you first or just tell you ‘hey, I’m in love with you?’”

“She just told me.” He cocked his head to the side. “Are you jealous?”

“Arya hates me, Jon. _Hates_. Me. I find it odd that she would ask something like that unless she had some personal… _reason_ to want to know. Like if things are going shitty and she can say ‘I told you so’ and then offer herself up again as the better option. Or perhaps the idea of us having sex has upset her to the point that she just has to know so she can plan to have me killed.”

“Sansa, she’s not going to have you killed.”

“You see, you say that, but it doesn’t make me feel any more secure because I honestly think that when it comes to certain things you’re a little bit dumb.”

“Like what?” he snapped. 

“Like underestimating just how much Arya hates me. Like not understanding a lot about women, especially someone like Arya. Like the emotions of others. Like being able to see past your own nose. Like—”

“I get it, Sansa,” he growled irritably. 

“I would hate for you to lie to me especially after we’re supposed to be trying. Things like that have a way of coming out eventually.”

Her words gave Jon pause even as he found himself saying, “I’m not lying, Sansa. Nothing happened between me and Arya.” 

_She kissed me while I was so drunk I couldn’t see straight_ , he told her in his head. _She kissed me and undid my pants and had my dick out and for a few brief minutes I convinced myself she was you. Sandor walked in and hollered at us and stopped the whole thing before I made the worst mistake of my life._

Arya had been hurt when he’d put a stop to the whole thing. And pissed, but mainly at Sandor for having walked in on it and bringing Jon to his senses.

“If you really believe Sansa is alive and you find her, she’ll never forgive you if she found out you fucked her sister,” Sandor had told him. 

“She’s dead!” Arya had screamed. “She’s fucking dead, and even if she isn’t then she’s betrayed him. She’s left him. Why should he stay faithful to someone that doesn’t fucking want him?!” 

“But I don’t want you,” Jon had told her. Probably not the best thing to say, but he’d been drunk off his ass and so the words had slipped right out, unfiltered. 

He’d felt horrible the next day – and not just because his head felt as though someone had shoved a mariachi band inside it. He’d cheated on Sansa, that’s what it felt like. And though he’d had a few one-night stands before then, he always felt the same after. But this it was worse because this time it was with Sansa’s sister. And though he had not actually done the deed, she’d had her hand on his dick and his tongue had been in her mouth. 

After throwing up a couple times and attempting to feel human, he and Arya had sat down to talk. She’d cried; he’d felt like an ass. 

_“Arya, you know I love you,” he said as soothingly as possible._

_“Yeah, like a sister,” she said through her tears. “Are you just going to deny yourself the ability to ever be happy? What if she left you, Jon? What if what you think is true and she is alive? That means she wanted to get away from you and so you’re going to look for her so you can what – bring her back to the place she escaped from? And if she **is** dead are you just **never** going to accept it?”_

_“I don’t have any answers for you,” he said softly. “When you really love someone one day you’ll understand how hard it is to just let them go.”_

_“But I do, Jon! I love you that way!”_

_“No, you don’t. What you feel is a childhood fantasy—”_

_“I’m not a child anymore,” she seethed. “I’m twenty-three years old.”_

_He shook his head. “You’ve built me up in your head, and with your constant need to prove yourself better than Sansa, you just see me as the ultimate prize. Something to have that she doesn’t because you aren’t happy with what you have. You’ve always coveted what Sansa had. That’s all I am.”_

_She looked as though he’d slapped her. “I can’t believe you just said that to me. After how loyal I’ve been to you. After how I’ve been here for you. After I’ve **always** been here.”_

_“And I appreciate it. I appreciate you. You’re my family and I love you. I can’t do this without you, Arya. I just can’t. I need you here. I just can’t…I can’t be with you.”_

It had taken some time, but eventually they’d put the incident behind them. He hoped she would meet someone and move on from him but she didn’t express a desire to meet anyone new. They’d never talked about it again, and Jon forced himself to act as though nothing had happened and nothing had changed. Yet he did feel protective of her and her feelings. Perhaps on some level because he knew Arya was a wild card. She was loyal to him, yes, but she also had a temper and though she liked to pretend her emotions didn’t get in the way of decisions, they did. Plus, he’d hurt her. And that was the last thing he’d wanted to do. Ever. She was Ned Stark’s little girl after all. He _did_ feel protective of her – as a brother would to a sister. 

He still wanted to believe that despite the fact that Arya and Sansa had been at odds most of their lives, Sansa was still her blood. Still her sister. He wanted to believe that Arya loved her sister underneath that hard exterior. Underneath all that resentment and ire she seemed to hold for Sansa. 

When he’d told Arya he was bringing Sansa home she had cried. Jon had thought that meant she did love her sister and was happy to learn she wasn’t dead. But then her tears had given way to anger and Jon told himself it was the same anger he felt. The feeling of betrayal. Of being tricked. 

Now he had a bad feeling he’d been lying to himself. 

Yet instead of fessing up because he well knew the ramifications of lying to Sansa here he was, lying to her. Lying to her and hoping like hell Arya never breathed a word to Sansa. He knew Sandor wouldn’t dare. Not unless he had a death wish. It wasn’t as though Jon didn’t know Sandor was in love with Sansa, but the guard was smart enough not to do anything against Jon. Not only would Jon kill him, but so would any of Jon’s men. 

There would be nothing to gain from Arya telling Sansa what had happened, he told himself. If anything, she would put a further rift in their relationship and then put one between Arya and himself. He would never forgive her for trying to sabotage him and Sansa. Never. 

_Would you kill her_? the dark voice inside him wondered. 

He didn’t want to think about that. She was a sister to him!

_But if she **ever** hurt Sansa…_

She wouldn’t. She was willful and stubborn and this situation wasn’t easy on any of them, but Arya wouldn’t hurt Sansa. Sansa was her _sister_ for fuck’s sake. She _wouldn’t._

“Are you even listening to me?”

Sansa snapped him out of his thoughts. “What?” he asked. 

“I said – how many women have there been?”

Oh, Jesus. “Sansa…”

“Too many to count? I mean, are we talking football team size or like the attendance at a chess match?”

He smirked. “You _are_ jealous.”

“I slept with a few.”

His smirk dropped and unholy rage filled him. “Who? Tell me who and I’ll—”

“That was a lie. I didn’t.”

He glared at her. “But you said there was someone you were seeing.”

“Just started to, not actually seeing seriously.” She sighed and folded her arms across her chest, her back hunching over a bit. That particular pose was when she wanted to guard herself. “You thought I was dead, for a while anyway, so I don’t…” she sighed and looked down and away. “I can understand you needing to connect with someone. For me I…I just couldn’t.”

Jon reached out and cupped the side of her face, his hands sliding into her hair. “It felt like cheating on you,” he rasped. “I…had a couple and…I was drunk. It was the only time and the only way…” Tears pricked his eyes. “I felt like I’d betrayed you and I wanted them to be you. It was your name on my lips,” he whispered. “Not a football team size. A handful.”

She nodded and attempted to move away from him. Jon didn’t want to let her go though. Instead, he pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her, one hand at the back of her head and the other around her waist. He pressed a kiss to her hair and buried his face in the silky mass. He breathed in her scent and tried to calm the storm inside him. He opened his mouth, thinking he could just tell her. He tightened his arms around her. _I could just tell her_ , he thought. _Just tell her what happened with Arya and we’ll add it to the mountain of shit we already have to work through._

But that might break this completely for Sansa. That could be the thing she couldn’t come back from and Jon was too afraid to risk it. He clamped his mouth shut. 

He’d just have to make sure Arya kept her trap shut. 

“Call your friend,” he whispered. “I won’t listen.”

She stiffened. “What?”

“I won’t listen. In fact, I’ll even go downstairs.” He pulled back and looked down at her, trying to smile. He wondered if she could see through it. Through him. She was good at that. 

She did look at him curiously and her eyes narrowed skeptically as though she was wondering what brought this change on. 

Finally though, she seemed to accept it. “Thank you,” she whispered. 

He leaned in, pushing his forehead against hers and breathed in. He could smell the body lotion she’d put on today and feel the warmth of her body. He wanted to burrow into her. He wanted to kiss her. Make love to her. God, he wanted it so bad…

She put her hands on his chest. “Thank you,” she said again. 

He nodded, taking that for what it was. She wasn’t ready yet. He pulled away from her reluctantly and left her to call while he headed downstairs to make a call of his own.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sansa was allll over the place in this chapter. She was a mass of contradictions so I hope this all makes sense.

Sansa shut the door to the bedroom after Jon had left and then went to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat, her phone in hand. 

To call Jeyne or to call Sandor? That was the question. 

Nothing said "I'm guilty" like "allowing" her to call Jeyne without having to be monitored. Control Freak Jon let that one go just a little too easily following the Arya discussion. Which led her to believe he was guilty. Something had happened. Had they just had sex? Had they had sex a lot? Had there been a relationship...? 

If they had...

 _Jesus, now I'm welling up in tears?_ she thought incredulously. _Really?_

She looked down at her phone and tossed it between her hands… back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Trac Phones had come a long way from when they'd first come out...

Why the hell was she hesitating? Why wasn't she rushing to call Sandor and ask him because if anyone would tell her the truth it would be him. If he knew. There was a possibility he didn't know. 

She could also call Arya. No doubt if something had happened between them, Arya would be an eager beaver about telling her. Except she’d had the opportunity to do just that and hadn’t. 

The nail file in Jon’s medicine cabinet. What had that been about? Arya had said it was her lucky lock picker, but how had it ended up in his medicine cabinet? It could have been displaced and just put there because why not – it was a medicine cabinet in which most nail files resided and he was the only one that lived in the house. 

Unless they had been fucking each other before Jon had discovered Sansa was alive and that’s how it had ended up in there. Arya had just left it behind and it got put away in there because again, it made sense for it to be in there. Though Jon would know about Arya’s lucky lock picker wouldn’t he? 

Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth…

_Why am I not dialing? What the hell is wrong with me? I have the right to know if Jon and Arya were getting it on. Why am I crying? What is wrong with me?! Even if they did bump uglies I have no right to say anything. I have no right to be upset. It should not bother me like this. He thought I was dead. I made him think that. I went to great lengths to make him think I was dead and I did it for a reason. And didn't I already think that Arya was better suited for him?_

That didn’t mean she actually wanted them to be together though!

 _Fuck._ Yes, hearing about the other women he'd fucked had hurt, but Arya....Arya was on a whole other level. Arya hated her. Arya had always competed with her. She'd proven herself better than Sansa time and again: she was tougher and stronger and braver. She could fight. She could pick fucking locks and handle guns without getting squeamish. 

Arya was good enough to be considered one of the “men.” Jon had often looked to her for counsel. She was valued and needed. He respected her opinions. 

Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose to stem the tears that wouldn’t stop coming as she gripped the phone hard in her hand. This was ridiculous. Get it together, Stark, she thought. You haven’t even wanted this reunion and now you’re upset about the prospect of Jon and Arya fucking around?

Neither call was going to happen tonight. She was too emotional to call Jeyne and too much of a goddamn coward to call Sandor. So, she got up, put her phone down on the top of the hamper and washed her face. Then she changed for bed and tried not to think about Jon and Arya in bed together. Of him inside her. Of him calling out Arya’s name when he came. Why in her head was he stone cold sober with Arya? Because he’d fucked her more than once. He wanted Arya. Or at least he had. Maybe they’d been fuck buddies?

 _Stop it, stop it, stop it!_ she scolded herself and marched from the bathroom. 

Jon was walking in the bedroom at the same time and he came to an abrupt stop when he saw her. “Everything all set?”

She stared at him blankly. 

“Did you call your friend?” he asked, looking at her a bit confused. 

She nodded. Well, shit. If he could lie to her then she could lie to him too. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him again: Did you or did you not fuck Arya?

 _You know, my sister who hates me? Who no doubt wishes I had stayed gone?_

Granted, Arya had seemed upset as well as pissed when she’d seen her again. 

_And Jon had gone after her after she’d slapped me as though Arya had been slapped and not me. . ._

There was no way Jon would go to the trouble of bringing her back to Winterfell if he was happy with his arrangement – whatever the fuck it was – with Arya. So they couldn’t be fuck buddies. Arya would have never let Jon go like that. Not to Sansa. 

So they must have fucked once. 

Maybe he’d been drunk and not stone cold sober like she was imagining. Maybe he regretted it. 

_Maybe, maybe, maybe…_

“Hey,” Jon said as he gently touched her shoulder. “Did you hear me?”

She blinked up at him. “What?”

“Where are you?” 

She moved away from him, turning her back on him and putting her hand on the door handle to the balcony. It was too dark to see the ocean. “Nowhere,” she mumbled. 

“Sansa, what did your friend say?”

_Ask him again. Do it._

_…….Do you really want to know?_

_If you find out this could be over. You can stop it right now._

_…….Is that what you want?_

“Sweetling, what is it?” he asked softly. He was close behind her; she could see him in the window. 

She turned quickly and put her hands on either side of his face and leaned in close, looking him in the eye. Looking for the truth. He gripped her waist. “Sansa,” he whispered, followed by a plea, “Please.”

 _What’s your endgame here, Stark?_ she thought. _Can you kiss the lips that kissed your evil sister?_

_……..Maybe he needs a reminder of what you bring to the sack._

_Do I even like him?_

_……..Do you love him still though?_

Weirdly enough, Jon had apparently decided that he was going to let her make the step towards physical intimacy. He didn’t kiss her, not on the lips. Instead, he leaned in and nuzzled the side of her face. Her hands dropped from his face and he gripped them in his. He nuzzled under her jaw. Her neck. 

She realized she wanted to kiss him. Partly because she wanted to stick it to Arya for possibly fucking Jon and always always always coveting him. Once she’d actually felt sorry for Arya and hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Once she’d still wanted a relationship with her sister despite how hateful she was. 

Now Sansa wanted nothing to do with her. 

Jon pressed his forehead to hers. “Please,” he begged. The other part wanted to kiss him because she just wanted to. When he was close like this she slipped back into the past, into what she’d always felt for him. Was it real? Did it matter? The reality was she still felt something now. Whether it was Arya, the fact that she’d never gotten over Jon, their past, Stockholm Syndrome was an option too…whatever it was she wanted to kiss him. 

Will it help anything? Will it make things better? Worse?

_A kiss is just a kiss, Sansa._

But a kiss between her and Jon would mean something. Not kissing him meant there was still a barrier there between them. If she kissed him that barrier came down. He could slip past the rest of them and then where would she be?

Back to business as usual? 

And if it was, then would she find herself saying she had just thrown one big temper tantrum over his neglect by leaving and forget that she didn’t want the mob life? That she didn’t want to bring a child into it?

“Sansa,” he said and looked surprised. 

“What?” she croaked. 

He caught a tear on his thumb, his brows furrowed in worry. “Sweetling…talk to me…”

She shook her head and broke the contact completely by pulling her hand from his and stepping away. “I need some air,” she mumbled and hurried from the room. She pounded down the stairs and then out the door and stormed down to the beach before she started to cry in earnest. 

She didn’t even know what she was crying about anymore. She just felt so…off kilter. It wasn’t settling well. Before at least she’d felt strong in her convictions, but now she felt they were a bit wibbly wobbly. 

_……….It’s not a bad thing to want your husband._

_It is when he’s a monster._

_………Maybe you could help show him another way._

_It’s not my job to fix him._

_……..There is good in him. You’ve seen it._

_That Jon is gone._

_……..Maybe not. Maybe he’s just dormant._

“What the fuck is that shit?” she said aloud. 

She turned and faced the house and said aloud, “If he comes out here and doesn’t leave me alone then I’m going to ask him about Arya again and put an end to this whole thing.” She plopped herself into the sand and waited. 

He didn’t come.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: this chapter is exactly 2400 words. 
> 
> So, this chapter took a while. I am slowly learning that what needs to happen is that I need to let them just possess me. And that's what it feels like when I'm writing these two in this. They just kind of take over. I want them to do one thing and they're like yeah, that's not happening. This is happening instead. My plan had been for Sansa to find out about Arya when they returned home but Sansa made it abundantly clear to me that she was NOT going to let this go until she got to the bottom of it. 
> 
> I don't know what the hell happened with Jon. He just freaking fell apart on me. 
> 
> This is my way of saying - I'm sorry if this is crap, but like you, I am just along for the ride.

Jon woke with a start and looked over at where Sansa should be in bed with him and found her not there. He frowned and turned his head to look at the alarm clock. 3 a.m. Okay, she had better not still be out on the beach. 

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep; he’d only meant to wait for her to come back. Something had upset her after he’d left her to make that call to her friend and he hadn’t trusted himself to not say the wrong thing so he’d stayed behind to give her some space. He’d done enough by lying to her. The least he could do was not make things worse by allowing his jealousy to rear its ugly head over something some friend in Wales said to her. 

He’d laid down and waited, trying to convince himself that he didn’t need to tell her anything about Arya. It hadn’t worked, but he hadn’t made the decision to tell her either. 

Jon got up, turned on the bedside lamp, climbed out of bed, and made his way down the stairs to see where Sansa had gotten off to. Just as he was about to head outside, he heard movement in the living room. He made his way through the kitchen, past the study, and into the living room where he found her on the couch. She was curled up with an afghan over her and he smiled – she just looked so adorable with one arm flung out and leg up on one of the armrests. 

He came over and knelt down beside her, just watching her sleep. Reaching out, he pushed some hair from her face and she shifted, moving her arm in and turning further on her side. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. He lingered there, his lips pressed to her skin and just took a moment to breathe her in. 

He leaned back and gently caressed the side of her face. “Sansa,” he said gently. “Sweetling.”

Her nose twitched and she moaned and rolled over facing the couch. Jon used the opportunity to run his hand through her hair, feeling the silkiness and weight of it in his hand. Then he ran a hand down her arm and she twitched. “Sansa, come on, sweetling. Let’s go up to bed.”

“Go away,” she moaned. 

“You’ll get a crimp in your neck sleeping on here.”

“Go away,” she said again. 

He sighed. “Why are you sleeping down here and not in our bed?”

“Because you’re a liar.”

Jon stiffened. “What did I lie about?”

“Arya. You fucked her.”

So that’s what earlier was about. Had she even called her friend? “No, Sansa. I didn’t fuck Arya.”

“I don’t believe you. Go away, Jon.”

“No,” he murmured and leaned in, pressing his face into the back of her neck. “Sweetling, please…”

She moved again and he sat back on his heels as she rolled over and looked at him. “What do you even want?” she asked. 

He took a chance and cupped the side of her face. “What I’ve always wanted. You. That’s all. Just you.”

She sighed heavily and shut her eyes. “I’m so tired, Jon.”

He moved so that their faces were inches apart. “Stop fighting me.”

She snorted and her eyes popped open. “You make nothing easy.”

“And you do?”

“It’s too late to get into how wrong you are.”

He chuckled. “It _is_ late. And you should be in bed with me. Not here on the couch because you’re imaging I’ve fucked when Arya when I haven’t.”

That much, at least, was the truth. And perhaps in the morning he might feel inclined to tell her exactly what happened between him and Arya, but not now. Not at 3 a.m. when they were both wiped. 

This is what he told himself at least. 

“I’m too tired to move,” she said with a sigh and turned her head away as she shut her eyes. 

“Not a problem then,” he said and got to his feet. He bent over and scooped her up in his arms. She let out a yelp as she wound her arms around him. 

“I didn’t expect you to do that,” she said with a frown. 

“I figured. Not sure why though. I remember doing this many a night when you’d fall asleep while we were watching a movie.”

“You have a faulty memory. I’d have to wake you up to go up to bed when you’d fall asleep within fifteen minutes of a movie being on.”

“See, and you made me walk up the stairs instead of carrying me.”

Sansa laughed and Jon laughed with her, happy to have been able to make her laugh. But when her laughter died down, she looked almost regretful that she’d even allowed herself to laugh at one of his lame jokes. 

When they got to their room, Jon laid her down on the bed and kissed her forehead before climbing in beside her and pulling the covers over both of them. He wanted to pull her against him and fall asleep with her in his arms. 

“Good night,” she said softly and then turned over, facing away from him. 

Jon sighed, turned out the light and tried to go back to sleep. He couldn’t though. He was wide awake now. _Tell her_ , the little voice in his head said. 

_No_ , he answered it. _I tell her and I lose her_

 _……..You’ll definitely lose her if she finds out anyway. The truth has a way of coming out. You know this._

He did know this. 

_I’ll tell her tomorrow_ , he thought. 

_……..Will you really?_

_Yes._

Sansa let out a light snore and Jon smiled wanly in the darkness. Slowly and carefully he moved closer to her until he was almost pressed up against her. He dipped his head down just enough so he could smell her hair and by degrees he allowed himself to relax, focusing on a different time. A time when they were happy. When he was able to hold her as they fell asleep. When he was able to kiss her when he wanted. 

When they were happy. 

_It’ll happen again_ , he thought. _It will._

 _It has to._

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sansa moaned as she drew closer to wakefulness. She rubbed her feet together and kept her eyes closed and as she swam toward wakefulness, she became aware that a warm body was pressed against her back and an arm was draped over her. 

Her eyes popped open and she forced herself to relax. To not make this a thing that Jon was pressed up against her and had his arm around her. Had she been the one to make the joke that maybe they’d wake up wrapped around each other like in the movies?

It was…nice. And it hurt, too. Not in any kind of physical way though it did make her heart ache, but in an I-remember-doing-this-with-you-when-we-were-happy kind of way. For a moment she could almost suspend time and pretend. 

She felt Jon move behind her. His arm tightened around her and she felt his breath stir the hair at her neck. He let out a hum and she felt his nose nuzzle against her nape. 

“Jon,” she said. 

“Sansa,” he murmured.

She didn’t know what to say then so she just waited to see what he would do. 

“This is nice,” he said softly. “Isn’t it?”

“Mmmm.”

“I miss you so much.” He kissed her shoulder and she jumped. He laughed and kissed her shoulder again and then rubbed his beard against it. 

“I’m right here,” she attempted lightly. “How can you miss me if I’m right here?”

“You know what I mean.”

She welled up in tears because goddamn, she did know what he meant. She missed him, too. She missed _them_. She missed the connection they had and how he smiled and laughed and made love to her. She missed the trust she’d had in him. 

She didn’t want him to know she was crying, but there really wasn’t any way to hide it was there? She sucked in a trembling breath and he knew. 

“Sweetling,” he said softly and gently rolled her onto her back. He loomed over her as the tears ran towards the bed. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

She put her hand over her eyes. “Because I miss you too,” she said in a trembling voice. “I miss my old Jon.”

“I’m here, Sansa, I’m right here. I swear I’m still here. I just need your help—”

She moved her hand off her eyes. “Old Jon wouldn’t have done the things you’ve done in the past – Jesus, I don’t even know how long it’s been anymore. I feel like it’s been a month and it’s been only like three fucking days.” She reached out and gripped his t-shirt in her fist. “And I know you’re lying to me. You’re _lying_ to me, Jon.”

“I didn’t fuck Arya, Sansa, I didn’t,” he said fiercely. His jaw clenched and she waited. There was more. She knew it. She could feel it. He ducked his head. “She tried—”

That was it. Sansa pushed at him and attempted to roll away from her, but he stopped her, pulled her back to him and wrapped his arms around her tightly and put one leg over hers, caging her against him. 

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t move.”

“Jon, let me go!”

“No, I want you to listen to me. You want to run away from me and I need you to listen.”

She couldn’t stop crying now. “Say it then. Say it and let me go!”

He pressed the side of his face against hers as he spoke. “I was drunk. So drunk I couldn’t even stand. Remember that time we tried Jaegerbombs and I was seeing double?”

“Yes,” she said through clenched teeth. 

“She came on to me – Sansa, stop! Listen to me, please!”

She stilled. 

“She kissed me and undid my jeans. She had my dick out—ow! Did you just bite me?”

“Yes!” she hissed. “Let me go!”

He didn’t. Instead he pinned her down to the bed, his legs on top of hers and his hands pinning her wrists down. “ _Listen_ to me,” he demanded. 

She glared at him. 

“I wanted it to be you. I was so drunk I convinced myself that it was. Sandor walked in and he snapped me out of it. I didn’t want her, Sansa. I’ve never wanted anyone but you.”

“Not true. You said you had other women.”

“Yeah, and I also told you I was drunk when I had them. It was easier to pretend they were you. They never stayed the night; I never let them. I told you, it felt like I was cheating on you. I just needed…comfort. Oblivion. That’s all it was. It was you I wanted. You I needed.”

“Why did you lie to me last night?” she asked as she glared up at him. 

“Because I love you so much and I’m so terrified to lose you,” he whispered and let her go. He collapsed against her, burying his face in her neck. “I need you, Sansa. I’m lost; I know I am. I know I’m a monster. I know I’m not the same man you married but I _want_ to be. I need you to help because only you can bring me back. Please, help me, Sansa, _please_.”

Now he was crying. Sansa lay there stunned. She didn’t know what to say or do after such a confession. Her mind was a blank. He thought she was the key to bringing Old Jon back? How? 

He lifted his head and peered down at her, one hand smoothing her hair over the crown of her head and the other tangling in her hair at the side. He looked at her as though she was the key to everything. As though she held the secrets of the universe. 

She didn’t want to hold the secrets of the universe. That was a power and an ability that was beyond her and yet…and yet…

And yet he was in pain. 

He pressed his forehead to hers and then kissed her cheek, her jaw, her chin. “Sansa, _please_ …”

“Jon,” she said and took his face in her hands, stilling him. 

Their eyes locked and he was pulling her in to his depths, begging her to take that leap. 

If she kissed him now she was afraid she would lose herself. If she didn’t kiss him he would turn terrible again. He would see it as rejection when it wouldn’t be, not completely. It just wouldn’t be the promise he was looking for. She didn’t hold the key to making him less of a monster. How could she? He’d been turning before she left. She hadn’t been able to help him then how did he think she had it in her to help him now? 

“I don’t have the power – the ability – to do what you’re asking,” she finally said. 

“You do. I know you do.”

“ _How_?”

“Do you still love me?”

“Love was never the problem, Jon.”

“Then we can fix it. The problem. We can fix it. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make it better.”

“I don’t know that you can. I’ve told you the problems. You haven’t listened.”

He shook his head. “No, I will. I will now. If I know that you are with me, that you’re not going to go, I will listen. I will do _whatever it takes_.”

How the bleeding hell had he gone from the scary boss man to kicked puppy in a matter of seconds? And why was kicked puppy still kind of scary?

His phone rang then, loudly, and she turned her head in the direction of it. 

“Ignore it,” he said. 

“No.” She pushed at him and he moved off of her and rolled onto his back with a groan, his arm over his eyes. “I need to process all this.”

She got up, grabbed his phone, and tossed it at him. It landed at his side and Sansa headed for the bathroom. 

“Sansa.”

She stopped and turned to look at him. He was sitting up, phone in hand. “We’ll continue this later, yes?”

“Yeah. Later.”

And then she hurried to the bathroom before he could stop her again.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure hope this chapter is coherent! I spent days working on it. HOURS. AND DAYS.

It didn't take a genius to figure out that something was wrong from the way Jon was shouting on the phone while Sansa waited for the coffee to finish percolating and she nibbled on toast. So, she wasn't all that surprised when he came back inside and said, rather unhappily, that they had to go home. 

"I don't suppose you'd let me stay while you go and deal with the problem?" she asked him. 

"No, I don't suppose I will," he said. 

She sighed. "What happened?"

"One of our gun shops have been broken into and stolen from,” he explained as he scratched his forehead. “Tormund thinks the Lannisters are involved and I need to get down there and investigate."

"Are there cops involved?"

"Yes and no."

"Gotcha. They're involved but you want to hold a separate investigation."

"Exactly."

She nodded and went to stand near the coffee pot and look out the window. Jon came up beside her and ran a hand down her arm. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

Instinctively, Sansa knew he wasn’t apologizing for anything he should be apologizing for but for having cut their trip short. 

She shrugged, and when she heard the coffee machine stop percolating, she grabbed a mug from the mug tree and started to pour herself a cup of coffee. Jon moved behind her and pressed himself against her back. 

“What are you about?” she asked lightly. She didn’t want to let on that his close presence behind her was distracting. This was how many of their kitchen trysts started. "Did you want some?" she asked, and to her ears her voice sounded a bit strained. 

"I want you," he murmured and she felt his nose bump into her shoulder. He put his hands on her hips and then nuzzled at her neck. "Do you want me too?"

Why did he have to ask these things? She answered him vaguely. "That was never the problem between us, Jon."

"I'm not talking about before all this. I'm talking about now. Do you feel anything for me now, Sansa?"

Yes, she did. It was new and yet not. It wasn’t lack of love and lack of wanting him that made her run. It was survival for her and their unborn child. It was bone deep sorrow for what they’d had and what they’d lost. Her feelings had never gone away. It was just that they’d morphed into something like music softly playing from another room: there, but in the distance. If she’d chosen to focus on it she could have gotten swept up in it, and sometimes she did. But, she had to keep going. Keep moving. 

Keep living. 

But now when he did these things, the music grew louder. Or it was as though she’d stepped into the room in which it was playing and could hear each note so succinctly. 

It would be easy to lie to him. But to what end? "I do," she said softly. 

He rolled his hips against her and she could feel his cock, half hard against her. Her breath hitched. “I remember before we started dating when having you as my girlfriend was just this fantasy I carried around on repeat in my head,” he said in between kisses pressed against her neck. To her dismay, she found herself tilting her head to the side to give him better access. “I would dream about kissing you.”

She snorted. “Just kissing me?”

“Everything started with a kiss,” he told her. “I always loved kissing you, Sansa. Those soft lips of yours, the taste of you…especially after you snacked on those brownies and lemon bars you liked making so much.” He sighed and she shivered as his breath caused the small hairs on the back of her neck to tickle her. “And now I find that I am starving for a taste of you.” He pressed himself even closer and whispered in her ear, “Kiss me…”

“I can’t,” she said achingly. “I can’t, Jon.”

“Why?” It sounded like a whine. 

“It will change everything.”

He rubbed his chin against her shoulder. His beard was at once rough and smooth. “Like what?”

“It will give you even more power over me and I can’t…”

He laughed softly and she stiffened. “I have the power? I’m begging for a taste of you, Sansa. I’m begging you to help me find the man you fell in love with and you think I have the power? You always had the power; you have it now. You’ve always been the stronger one out of the two of us.”

Was he serious? “Then what is all this?” she asked, unable to keep the exasperation out of her voice. “What has all of this been then?”

“I am ash when you’re not with me. I’m lost without you, Sansa.”

“You’ve stripped everything I built for myself, Jon. You want to force me back into being your wife when I have nothing to offer you because you won’t give me anything.”

He stilled, his fingers digging in momentarily into her hips. Then he moved away from her and Sansa turned to face him. His brow was furrowed as he looked down at the floor. “What do you want?” he asked as he looked up at her. 

“To not be treated like a prisoner.”

“Sansa, I don’t know how long the investigation is going to take and we can’t work on this if you’re here—”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t want to be watched every minute. I don’t want you making decisions for me.”

He heaved a sigh and looked at her. “If any decision I make in the future have to do with your safety, then that is a promise I can’t keep.”

“Barring safety issues then. If I want to call my friend in Wales then you don’t get to say when. If I want to go down to the store you don’t get to tell me I can’t. And if I want to talk to Sandor, you don’t get to act like I’m your property. He’s my friend.”

“And I’m your husband.”

“Oh, you’re not my keeper then?”

He shot her a look. “The original deal still stands. I want you coming to me with issues.”

“I am right now. Also, this isn’t a deal I’m making here, Jon. I’m demanding the basic human rights that every person has.”

“You don’t understand how your stunt made you lose my trust,” he snapped. “If you’d never done what you did you don’t think I’d be fine with going home for a few days and leaving you here? I would and you know it. I denied you nothing before. But after what you pulled? I can’t take that chance.”

“How can you still want me if you think there’s a chance I’ll just take off if given the opportunity?”

He stared at her for a long time before answering. “Because, Sansa, you’re so much a part of me that I can’t let you go even if I wanted to. What was it Cathy said about Heathcliff? That whatever their souls were made of, they were one and the same. That’s us, Sansa. That’s always been us.”

She didn’t know what to say to that except Heathcliff and Cathy were fictional, and they did horrible things to each other. They broke each other. 

Well. 

Maybe they were similarities after all. 

xxxxxxxxxxx

Yes, Sansa had agreed not to tell Sandor her problems with Jon and to go the source (Jon) with her issues. Well, that was all fine and dandy, but not realistic. Especially when she had no one else to confide in. No other friend in which to talk to about things. 

As soon as Sansa saw Sandor upon entering the kitchen in Winterfell, she had to stop herself from running to him and throwing her arms around him. She was so relieved to see him after spending the past two days with Jon. After all the confusion and stress and confessions, it was nice to see someone that she didn’t have so much baggage with. Someone she could let her guard down with…someone that didn’t require negotiating with. 

Seeing Sandor, however, meant seeing Tormund and Arya, too. And seeing Arya after what Jon had confessed to her was not easy. Part of Sansa wanted to pretend her sister didn’t exist. The other part wanted to claw her eyes out for what she did. She wondered if Arya had even felt the slightest twinge of guilt. If she had thought of Sansa at all. She also wondered if Arya had planned out when she’d make her move or had just seen an opportunity and taken advantage of it. And what did it say about Arya that she was willing to fuck Jon while he’d been drunk off his ass?

Ignore her sister though, Sansa could not. Especially when Arya went out of her way to make her presence known. Not in any kind of blatant way either. Instead, Arya stayed quiet (and creepy) and just watched Sansa intently. Being watched in such a manner was unnerving and Sansa of old may have let Arya affect her to the point that she wouldn’t speak or move for fear of doing something that Arya could ridicule. 

This time, Sansa stared her sister down. She gave nothing away. She didn’t glare. She didn’t cower. She just stared. Arya’s eyes narrowed a smidgeon and then she averted her gaze to Jon. This felt like a win to Sansa, despite how fucking childish it felt to her. 

Tormund just blatantly ignored her. That was uncomfortable in another way. 

“What do we know?” Jon asked. 

“Joe said when he came in the guns in the stock room had been stolen. All of them,” Tormund explained. “He’s been completely cleaned out.”

“That including the front end?”

“Yes. Strangely enough, not the cash register.”

“Well, whoever it was they probably figured they had enough in merchandise,” Jon said and raked a hand through his hair. “Joe was one of Lannisters targets last year before we got to him. They haven’t been happy about the success that shop has had compared to the one they own.”

“What would make them wait so long to do anything about it if they were that unhappy?” Sansa asked. 

Jon looked over at her with a bit of surprise. No doubt he had figured she would leave the room once they all started talking shop. 

“They’ve been attempting to thwart our shipments – a couple never made it and others had been ransacked before they even got here,” Sandor answered her. “The guns we’re getting would help their own business and they want a piece.”

“By fair means or foul,” Sansa murmured. 

“Just foul,” Sandor said. 

“I’m sorry, but why is she here?” Arya asked Jon. “Are we not talking about business? No women allowed.”

“By that logic you shouldn’t be here either then,” Sansa said with a laugh. 

Arya reddened and Tormund held up a hand. “With all due respect, Sansa, you should not be part of this.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, can my wee little brain not understand what you’re talking about? I got the gist of it, thanks,” Sansa said and looked at Jon. “If you want my opinion I’d probably start getting my shipments sent someplace else for a while. I’d also set up dummy ones and have some of the men put on those cargo ships so you have spies to figure out who exactly has been tampering with them.” She smiled sweetly at Arya and then at Tormund. “If you’ll excuse me I suppose I have some ‘womanly’ things to do now.”

Another point for me, Sansa thought with a smirk as she grabbed her suitcase and made her way down the hall. 

xxxxxxxxx

“Knock knock.”

Sansa smiled and slid the nightstand drawer shut as she looked up at Sandor. “Have you been put on me duty?”

“Just like old times.”

“Did you get another stern reminder that you’re not my husband?”

He laughed somewhat nervously and ran a hand through his hair. “Wellll…”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Are they all gone?”

“Grenn is here.”

Sansa arched a brow. “To watch over us?”

“Presumably.”

“Great. Well, let’s make sure his time is well spent then. Walk with me down to the lake?”

“You didn’t get enough time with the water?” Sandor asked with a grin. 

“Not nearly.”

“Of course, Little Bird. Let’s go.”

Sansa led the way, smiling over her shoulder at Sandor who smiled back at her. When they passed through the kitchen to the front door, Grenn stood up from the table. “Where are you guys going?”

“Just down to the lake,” Sansa told him. “You’re free to come outside and sit on the deck if you’d like.”

Grenn grunted something Sansa couldn’t hear and continued on with Sandor right behind her. Once they got to the small beach behind the house, Sansa looked over her shoulder and was surprised to find Grenn not there. No doubt he was watching from the house though. 

Sansa sat in the sand and Sandor followed suit with a grunt. “So, Little Bird, are we all reconciled?”

“Hardly.”

“Are things any better?”

“Some negotiations and deals have been struck.”

“Oh?”

“In exchange for me being able to call it quits when I see that there is no hope and that this…whatever you want to call it…is not working, I can’t talk to you about my problems with Jon. I have to go to him any issue I have with him.”

Sandor sighed. “I see.”

“Before we left today he promised to give me some freedom and not treat me like a prisoner, but I have to imagine that’s been deemed null and void since Grenn had to stay behind to play baby-sitter.”

“That’s not entirely fair, Little Bird. Jon no doubt felt it was a good idea to have another man on hand just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Things happen, Sansa. You know that.”

“Whatever, I guess it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t trust me after what I did and I suppose I cannot entirely blame him for that. Though it’s not like you’d help me escape if that’s what I intended to do.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Sandor said softly. 

Sansa whipped her head to the side to look at him. “Excuse me?”

“I made a promise a long time ago to your father that I would protect you.”

“You made promises to Jon, too.”

“Yeah. To protect you.”

“And to be loyal to him. You already told me you wouldn’t help me because of that loyalty.”

“I gave it some thought. I changed my mind.”

“What made you change your mind? Did something happen?”

He snorted. “You’ve always been too smart for your own good, Little Bird.”

“What is it? What happened?”

He sighed and didn’t say anything for a bit and then he said, “I don’t like the way things have gone. The way he scared you, what happened with Tormund and Arya…it wasn’t right. And I acknowledge my part in that and I apologize.”

“You were following orders.”

“Yeah, that’s what the Nazi soldiers said too. Didn’t make it right.”

“Sandor, what you’re saying, what you’re implying – it’s considered treason in this organization.”

“I know, but I want you to know that if you need to go I want to help you go. After how things were before you two left I’m surprised you didn’t take him up on the offer to call it quits already.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be very sporting of me would it?”

“Is that what this is? Sport?”

“It certainly feels like a competition. Who will bend and break first?”

“Jon didn’t bend before, Sansa,” Sandor said softly. “He just broke.”

“And he expect me to put him back together.”

“I’m going to guess by your tone that you don’t think you can do it.”

Sansa looked at him. “It’s not my job to fix him. It’s not anyone’s job to fix another person.”

“Perhaps what Jon is lacking is direction. Your father gave him a job, a place in the family business. He was a soldier carrying out orders just like me, just like Tormund, just like your bitch of a sister. But you, Sansa Stark, the Goddess of the Stark family, saw him. The real him. Not the soldier. Not the lost boy with the absent father and self-absorbed mother, but Jon fucking Snow.”

“So because I’m the one that saw him he thinks I’m the one that can bring him back to himself?”

“Yeah, that. You’re his true North.”

“I lost him before, Sandor. It’s part of why I left! How am I expected to help him if I already lost him?” she demanded exasperatedly. 

“You said he asked you to help him?”

“Yes”

“Then that’s how. He wants it. He’s ready for it. He just needs you to direct him. Out of all of us, Sansa, you’re the only one that can do it. You’re the only one that knows him. Truly knows who he is behind closed doors. You think we do? No, Sansa, we don’t.”

“Not even Arya?”

Sandor made a face and grabbed a nearby rock and hocked it into the water. “No, not fucking Arya. She doesn’t even know her ass from her goddamn elbow. She…no. Not her.”

“I know what happened between them,” Sansa said softly. “He told me.”

Sandor sucked in a sharp breath. “And you didn’t call it quits then?”

Sansa shook her head slowly and emitted a soft sardonic laugh. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“That right? Or do you know, and you’re just afraid to admit it?”


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress! FINALLY I feel like Jon is bending a little. Thank GOD.

It was late, and all Jon wanted to do was go home and see Sansa. He kept imagining walking into the bedroom they’d once shared and finding here there, waiting for him. She used to do that in the old days when he was out late taking care of business. Towards the end, when she had apparently been planning to leave him, she hadn’t done that. He’d come home and she’d be in bed with the lights out, dozing. He remembered how it had hurt when she’d started doing that. As if she didn’t care about him anymore. As if she didn’t worry anymore whether he came home hurt or if he came home at all. 

It had started after Myrcella’s death. So, Jon told himself it was because of that. She was angry with him and that was her way of letting him know. It had still hurt though. 

He wondered what he’d find when he came home tonight, and he kept telling himself that as long as she was in their bed, it didn’t matter if she was awake or not. 

It did matter though, no matter how much he told himself it didn’t. 

Jon looked over at Arya who was sitting sullenly in the back of the Escalade with him while Tormund drove them back home. She’d been particularly snippy that night. Arya on a good day wasn’t always exactly a peach to be around, but Arya on a bad day was difficult to deal with. 

When Jon had decided Sansa was right in her advice and he’d begun to implement her plan of staging a faux shipment to catch the Lannisters at their game, Arya had been enraged. “Seriously? You’re listening to her now?” she’d exploded. 

“It was a good idea,” Jon had replied simply. 

He hadn’t missed how Tormund had patted Arya on the back and muttered, “Just let it go, Arya.” In fact, he hadn’t missed how Arya and Tormund had seemed to stick by each other while they’d called a mandatory meeting at Joe’s to set up their trap. The two had always gotten along, but had never been particularly close. Now it seemed a bond had formed between the two. It was a bit troublesome to Jon, and he made a mental note to keep an eye on them. They were the two unhappy with Sansa’s return and it was worrisome to him that it was perhaps that very thing they’d bonded over. 

With that in mind, he figured it was a good as time as any to have a little chat with his sister-in-law. He pushed the button to put the divider up so Tormund couldn’t hear what he was about to say, and Arya looked over at him in question. 

“You crossed a line sending me those texts, Arya,” he said. “Don’t ever do it again.”

Arya smirked. “Did the perfect little princess see them?”

“Were you hoping she would?”

Arya shrugged and looked out the window. 

“I’ll not tolerate anyone trying to drive a wedge between me and Sansa.”

Arya snorted and looked at him. “Is that because there is already a wedge between you the size of the distance from here to Wales?”

“What happens between Sansa and I is none of your business. I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of it,” he said sternly. 

She pursed her lips together and looked back out the window. 

“Aren’t you the least bit glad that your sister is alive?” he asked, a bit exasperated.

“She was more useful dead.”

Jon reached over and put his hand under chin; he turned her head and looked right in her eye. “If you do anything to hurt her you won’t like the consequences. And trust me, there will be consequences.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Take it as you want, but I mean it. Leave Sansa alone.”

“Does she know about us?” she asked, tears welling up in her eyes. 

“There is no us, Arya. Not the way you want there to be. And yes. I told her. It’s what you were hoping would happen, wasn’t it? That she would see the texts and question me?”

The tears spilled over and tracked down her cheeks. “I don’t understand how you can still love her and want her after what she did to you. _I’m_ the one that has always been here, Jon. _Me_. I was there when she ‘died’. _I_ was the one that picked up the pieces when you shattered because of _her_. And now you’re threatening me to protect her after what she did to you? She has never known you the way I do. What do I have to do to make you see me? To make you see how much I love you? I can love you so much better than she can. I never would have done what she did to you.”

“You don’t know me better than she does, Arya,” Jon said softly. “And I do see you. I rely on you, I need you—”

“You need me as one of your men,” she said bitterly. “You don’t need me the way I want you to need me. The way I need _you_.”

“I’m sorry.” And he was sorry. He didn’t want to hurt Arya; he’d never wanted to be the one to cause her heartbreak, but he also couldn’t give her what she wanted. His heart wasn’t his to give. It belonged to Sansa; it had _always_ belonged to Sansa. 

He wished things could be different between the sisters, but Arya’s hatred of Sansa was something embedded in her, and it was something that had always been there. It was bone-deep, and Jon had a feeling that even if he was able to give Arya what she wanted (even if he wanted to which he didn’t), the hate she felt for Sansa wouldn’t magically go away. 

Arya pushed the button to lower the divide. “Stop the car, Tormund. I’m getting out.”

Jon sighed. “Arya, stop. It’s late. You shouldn’t be out walking the streets.”

“Like you give a shit.”

“I _do_ , Arya,” he said vehemently. “I _do_ care what happens to you. I always have and I always will.”

Tormund pulled over and looked in the back as though he wasn’t sure what to do. Arya jumped out. “I’ll be fine. I’m armed. Go back home to your precious Sansa.”

She slammed the door shut and stormed off and Jon sighed and rubbed a hand down his face. 

“What do you want me to do, boss?” Tormund asked. 

“Home,” Jon replied wearily. “Just take us home.”

xxxxxxxxxx

When Jon came through the front door he found Sandor, Sansa, and Grenn playing a card game. They all looked wiped, especially Grenn. All right so it wasn’t exactly the way Jon had imagined coming home to Sansa, but he took comfort in the fact that she was still awake at least. It was as if she had in fact been waiting up for him. 

“How’d it go?” she asked. 

“Fine. I took your advice.”

She looked surprised by that. 

“Grenn, Sandor, why don’t you two go home?” Jon said. “I’ll brief you tomorrow on what’s going on.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Grenn said as he got to his feet with a yawn and a stretch. “Thanks for the game, Sansa.”

“Thanks for the pizza,” Sansa said with a smile. 

Grenn grinned, slapped Sandor on the back, nodded to Jon, and left. 

Sandor got up then. “Only you could make me sit here for two hours and play some kid’s card game, Little Bird.”

She grinned up at him and Jon looked away. He didn’t want to be jealous of the relationship Sansa had with Sandor, but when Sandor got her warmth and Jon got her contempt, it was hard. 

_You haven’t done much to earn her warmth_ , the little voice in his head informed him. 

Sandor nodded to Jon as he passed by and headed out the door. Jon nodded back. Sansa collected the remaining cards on the table and began to shuffle as she watched him. “You took my advice?” she asked. 

Jon nodded and sat down. “I did. It was good advice.”

“Thanks,” she said softly. “You okay?”

He sighed and shook his head. “No. Arya…we had a talk in the car and it resulted in her getting out of the car and preferring to walk home.”

“Was the talk about me?”

“Yes. I told her I didn’t appreciate her texts. I also told her that I told you about what happened between us.”

Sansa placed the cards on the table and put her hands in her lap. “And?”

“And I told her that if she did anything to hurt you she wouldn’t like the consequences.”

Sansa heaved a sigh and shook her head. “Jon, why would you say that? What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that she sent me those text messages hoping you would see them and ask me what was going on—”

“You almost fucking Arya should have been something you told me anyway,” she snapped. 

He nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I was afraid to. You’ve had one foot out the door since I got you—”

“Can you blame me?”

Jon leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Sansa. Christ, I can’t do anything right. I come in here and I see you smiling at Sandor and I want that. I want you to smile at _me_ like that. There’s this little voice in my head telling me I’ve done nothing to deserve it. I don’t know how to relinquish control, okay? I’m so used to other doing what I tell them to do that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be told no. I’m a fucking mess of a human being, I admit it. I don’t know how to let go of the reigns, and I hold on so tight because you’re here and I want what we had back. I want you to love me again and logically I know I can’t make you…”

“But you’d like to anyway?”

He looked up at her, tears in his eyes. “What’s happened to me?”

“You lost your way, just as you said. You need some…direction.”

“Where do I start?”

He sounded so forlorn and so lost that Sansa felt a crack in the wall she’d erected. “Well, for starters I think you should listen to that voice. It sounds like your conscience.”

He let out a short laugh. “I still have one of those?”

“You do. It’s just kind of quieter than most people’s.”

“And then what?” 

Sansa got up and made her way around him. She placed her hands on his shoulders and began to massage them. He tensed at first, but she didn’t give up. Soon he began to relax. 

“And then you sleep because you’re exhausted,” she said. 

He nodded and hung his head so she could work on his neck. When her fingers started to cramp, she stopped and then moved beside him and held out her hand. “Sleep?”

He nodded and took her hand, looking at her with a mixture of sadness and longing. 

While Jon showered and readied for bed, Sansa used the bathroom down the hall, and then slipped into the bed and waited for Jon to join her. When he emerged from the bathroom, hair wet, and dressed in blue checkered lounge pants and a white t-shirt, she smiled. It didn’t quite come out right – a bit somber— but everything felt rather somber at the moment. She patted his spot on the bed and he stopped mid-stride and just stared at her in surprise. 

He propelled forward and crawled in, facing her. He looked at her searchingly and, with her heart hammering in her chest and Sandor’s words from earlier still ringing in her head ( _“Or, do you know, and you’re just afraid to admit it?”_ ), she moved closer to Jon and curled up against him. 

“Sansa,” he choked out and wrapped his arms around her. 

She tucked her head under his chin and she felt him kiss the top of her head and clutch at her as though she was a life preserver. Maybe she was his.


	24. Chapter 24

She was uncomfortable. That’s what finally woke Sansa. It was no wonder when she realized the position she was in, or rather the position she and Jon were in together. She was on her side, the arm under her splayed out straight, while her lower half was twisted towards Jon who was behind her, her upper half was leaning forward. Jon had one hand splayed on her belly as though keeping her in place, and one leg over hers. His face was against her neck. It was as though she’d tried to escape in her sleep and he was having none of it. 

And that was pretty much their entire relationship at this point, wasn’t it?

Slowly, so as to not wake Jon she shifted so that her upper half was in line with her lower half. She let out a sigh that was partially a moan at how good that felt. 

“Mmmm,” Jon moaned from behind her. “Sweetling.”

“I didn’t mean to wake you. I was just contorted in this weird position…”

He chuckled against her neck. “That sounds like one of our sexcapades. Remember when we tried a few positions in the Kama Sutra?”

Sansa felt her cheeks growing red just at the memory. “Yes. It was then I learned I have no upper body strength to speak of.”

He laughed again and pressed a kiss to her neck as he moved his leg off of her and simply spooned her. His hand on her belly stayed in place though. Sansa could feel his cock hard against her ass. 

“Oh sweet girl, I have missed this,” he said on a sigh. 

“Me too,” she said softly. 

“You mean that?”

“Yes. I didn’t leave and just forget you, Jon. I missed you every day. I thought about you every day. I worried about you…” She stopped talking lest the tears she felt coming gave way. 

He kissed her shoulder and murmured, “Thank you.”

“So, what’s on the agenda today?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice from wobbling. 

He sighed and rubbed his chin against her shoulder. “I have to meet with the men about trapping the Lannisters – if it is them, which I am sure it is. We’ve got a bare bones plan, but we need to work out the kinks. Do you want to join us?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Seriously?”

He sighed and rolled over onto his back. “No. Yes.” He looked at her as she rolled over to face him. “I don’t know. You said I didn’t talk to you; didn’t tell you things. Maybe if you were more involved…”

“You don’t really want that, do you?”

He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t want you involved in the things that go on. It’s better for you not to know about them, not only for your safety but because—”

“If the authorities became involved, yadda yadda yadda…yes, Jon, I know.” She rolled over onto her stomach and looked over at him. “Honestly? I don’t really want to be involved. Not at the capacity that everyone else is. Maybe you could just filter out the things that are better for me to not know? You not sharing with me wasn’t just about business, Jon. You stopped sharing with me altogether. You went to this place inside yourself I couldn’t reach. You just grew colder, more distant…harder.”

He reached up and tucked some hair behind her ear. “I was trying to be strong. For you, for my men…I wanted to be in better control. After Theon betrayed us and Robb was killed I realized I had to be tougher. Stronger. More shrewd. I wanted to not feel because I thought it would be easier for the things I had to do. And then there were things going on…”

“Can you tell me now what they were?” she asked. 

He regarded her thoughtfully for a bit and then nodded. “I suppose I can. Just…can I hold you?”

She bit her lip and nodded and scooted closer to him. She rested her head on his chest and he swallowed her up in his arms and kissed the top of her head. “There was this kid. Olly. He started working for us.”

“Olly? That name doesn’t sound familiar. Did I meet him?”

“No. I had him killed before you could.”

She stiffened in his arms. “What?”

Jon held her tighter. “I trusted him, Sansa. Trusted him to the point that I was going to make him your guard.”

Sansa pushed out of his arms. Surprisingly, he let her. She sat up and looked down at him with a frown. “Sandor is my guard. Were you going to give me two?”

“No, I was going to replace him.”

“What? Why?”

“Because Sandor isn’t exactly a spring chicken.”

“He’s still strong and capable.”

“And because he’s so capable, I thought I could use him in other areas.”

“You still can use him in other areas.”

“Plus, I was jealous.”

She sat up and looked down at him. “For the love of God, Jon—”

“You told him everything, Sansa,” Jon said as he sat up against the headboard. “You confided in him about things you didn’t confide in me about anymore.”

“Pretty hard to confide in someone when they shut down as soon as you express a feeling,” she snapped. “Please remember that I’ve also had him as my guard since I was seventeen. We have a bond, I won’t deny that. But I wasn’t married to him, I was married to you.”

“You’re still married to me,” he reminded her. 

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.” 

“You trust him more than you trust me. Even then.”

“I trusted you more than anyone until you became this cold, unfeeling mobster automaton. Just because you’re my husband doesn’t mean that trust can’t be lost. I’m your wife – do you trust me right now?”

“I trust you not to murder me in my sleep.”

“Well, that’s comforting. But again - you know what I mean.”

“Sandor is in love with you, Sansa. The only reason I trust him with you is because I know he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything. Also, he would die for you, which is what I would do to protect you.”

“I don’t want anyone dying for me,” she murmured.

“You know that’s part of his job description. That he would do it because he loves you is just coincidental.”

“Sandor is not in love with me, Jon. He’s just my friend—”

“I said the same things about Arya.”

Annoyed, Sansa climbed off the bed. She heard Jon sigh heavily behind her, clearly not happy with her moving away from him. She didn’t care. 

“Tell me about Olly,” she said and gestured to him from where she stood at the foot of the bed. 

“I don’t let just anyone near you, Sansa. I have to trust them. Explicitly. Tormund raved about him – he’d done a few things with Olly and thought he was great. He liked him enough to think Olly should move forward. So, on his recommendation I met with him. We worked together for a long while, and I considered letting him replace Sandor.”

“He must have betrayed you to warrant you killing him.”

“He did. He was working for the Lannisters. When things started to go wrong and in favor to the Lannisters, I knew I had a rat.”

“Olly was the rat.”

Jon nodded. He climbed off the bed slowly, not wanting to startle her, but not wanting her to run off when he got to the part he knew would upset her. When he was within arm’s length of her he stopped. “He was Myrcella’s boyfriend. The father of her child. So when she made that comment to you it wasn’t just some random, off the cuff remark. She meant it, Sansa. She wanted you dead because I killed her boyfriend.”

“You killed a family,” she whispered and started to walk away from him. 

Jon reached out and grabbed her arm. She whipped her head around and glared at him and he dropped her arm and held up his hands. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head and walked practically to the other side of the room, wrapping her arms around herself. 

“I didn’t find out until after I’d killed him that he was Myrcella’s boyfriend,” he said. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant, Sansa. That much you knew already.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Is this when the panic attacks started?”

“Yes. When I realized I had a rat. _Another_ rat after Theon.” He shut his eyes briefly and then looked at her. “I didn’t want to kill him, Sansa. He reminded me of myself a little bit. I thought I was being like Ned in giving him a chance to prove himself. But not only did he betray me, but he was someone that I thought I would be able to trust with you. If I had let you alone with him…” He clenched his jaw and made a fist. “I couldn’t let him live after that. You know how it works, Sansa.”

“How old was he? Myrcella was so young…”

“He was twenty.”

She shook her head and made a face. “This life it…God, it claims so many lives. It destroys people.” 

“Your father had to make tough decisions like that. I know he did because I was there.”

She looked away from him. Jon knew it hurt to hear about her father this way. Sansa had always been shielded from the business, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew the things that her father had to do, but she’d just looked the other way when he did them. 

She’d gotten a crash course in all the nitty gritty when Theon betrayed them. When Robb and Ned were killed. When Catelyn went nuts, and when Jon had to take over. She’d been strong for him, too. Listened to him confess his sins to her, and somehow make him feel he wasn’t a terrible person. Wasn’t a monster. 

“I didn’t want to taint you,” he said. “I confessed to you like you were a fucking priest absolving me of my sins and I felt weak. You bore it all, everything I told you, and watched me sob like a fucking baby. I had to be stronger, Sansa. I had to be stronger for you, for my men – for all of us. I couldn’t afford to let morality get in the way – there is no morality in this life. It’s kill or be killed, and you know that too. After Theon cost us Robb, after Ned was killed, and Olly betrayed me – he was a _rat_ , Sansa. He was working for the Lannisters while making me _trust_ him. He could have had you _killed_. I couldn’t take that chance with Myrcella. She wanted your blood spilled and I couldn’t give them the opportunity.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe that you had just killed her over some stupid comment…?”

“Because I was ashamed. Just like we’d all trusted Theon, I’d trusted Olly. And I was angry. So _fucking_ angry. I wanted to kill them all, Sansa. I still do. If I could take them all out so that they could never hurt us I would.”

“Jon—”

“They are our _enemies_ , Sansa.”

She sighed. “I know.”

“I’d do anything to keep you safe. And not because of any promise I made. Because I love you, Sansa.”

“But you do realize that in killing them both, you put an even bigger target on me. While I was carrying our child.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “The target was always on you. You think if given the chance they wouldn’t do you in?”

“Do you get it now, Jon? Why I had to go? Why I felt there was other choice for me? I couldn’t be here and have a husband that had gone stone cold on me, and then bring a child into this life.” She wiped at the tears that fell. “I don’t want to end up like my mother.”

“You won’t, Sansa—”

“If I’d lost you and then a child to the Lannisters, I’m afraid I would have.”

“What are you saying then? That you don’t want to have children?”

“As long as I am part of this life, and in this world, no. I do not want to have children.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After every chapter I write for this story I feel utterly spent. LOL


	25. Chapter 25

While the men met at the house, Sansa went down to sit at the beach. She’d received her new phone from Tormund before the meeting and when she’d thanked him, he’d grunted at her and walked away. And then when she’d seen Sandor, who was sitting in on the meeting, all she could think about was what Jon had said about Sandor being in love with her. She’d ducked out of the house with a nod and a wave to him and headed down to the beach.

It was time to call Jeyne, and frankly she was pretty nervous about it. She imagined by now the authorities had been notified, although one look at her flat and it would be obvious that she’d packed before she left. It had been a bit slap dash, so it could appear to someone looking at the state of her bedroom that things had been packed hastily, perhaps giving the appearance she’d been in a rush rather than kidnapped. How many kidnappers let their victims pack a bag anyway? On the other hand, a kidnapper could give the appearance that the kidnapped had just been in a rush just to throw them off. 

Regardless, Jeyne and her other friends had to be worried. Her students were probably sad and worried, and didn’t understand at all why Miss Stone had left the way she did. Truthfully, it angered Sansa all over again when she thought about the manner in which she was forced to leave – and the fact that she had been forced to leave at all.

There were probably other, better ways to approach Project: Get Sansa Back. Why did he have to be a fucking creeper and break into her house and then zip tie her?

It was testament to just how enmeshed Jon had become with his Mob Boss persona. Everything had to be done with force. Want. Take. Have. That was Jon’s motto. As it was with any “good” mob boss.

Well, he wasn’t exactly at the having part with her, so there was that.

So, for this phone call an apology and a good story would have to suffice. Of course she had never told her friends her actual story. Too much risk in that. So, she’d told them she hailed from Wisconsin and was estranged from her family due to her father being verbally abusive and controlling. She may have been thinking of Arya and Jon a bit when she’d come up with that one. She also told them that her mother always sided with her father, and so her mother enabled him in this way. The only way to escape his control, she’d told them, was to leave the country and start where he had no power over her.

Her nerves rattled as she pressed the phone to her ear and it began to ring.

“Hello?”

Sansa’s eyes welled up in tears at the sound of her friend. “It’s me.”

“Alayne?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God, Alayne! Where are you? What happened? We’ve been going out of our minds wondering what happened to you. I had to call the police! They thought it just looked like you left in a hurry, but then you didn’t call… Are you okay? Why can’t I see the number you called from? Did you block the call?

“I’m okay,” she said and heaved a shuddering breath. Yup, she was going to cry. No, scratch that. She already was. “I – I don’t know why the number isn’t showing on your end.”

“Are you crying?”

“Yes,” Sansa said and broke down. “I’m sorry I had to leave like that, but my Dad had a stroke followed by a heart attack and my Mom called me to come out here. She said he’d been asking for me.”

“Do you need me to come out there? I will.”

Sansa had told Jeyne she lived in Wisconsin. “No, Jeyne, no. I’m going to be okay. Things are…rough, but I can manage.”

“Alayne, you don’t have to do this alone.”

“I do. I do have to.”

“Is he…? I mean, is he still…?”

“He’s alive. He’s not completely with it so for now he’s as docile as a kitten.”

Jeyne asked her a few more questions and Sansa did her best to keep her story straight. She’d actually had some practice doing that very thing since she’d left, so it wasn’t too difficult. Just tiring. Before she ended the call, she had managed not to tell Jeyne where she exactly was in “Wisconsin”, and to send her love and her best to everyone.

“Will I see you again?” Jeyne asked at the end. “I feel like…are you saying goodbye for good, Alayne?”

“I don’t know, Jeyne,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be more definitive, but things are up in the air right now…Lots of healing to do and all…”

And when it came down to it, Sansa just didn’t know how this was all going to go. Chances were it would be safer for her not to return to Wales if she and Jon ended up splitting for good because, well, his men all knew where she’d been. If she was going to leave and start over she’d go where she (hopefully) wouldn’t be found again. Especially if someone like, say, Tormund, got it in his head to take her out.

On the other hand, she liked to think that maybe, just maybe, one day she could see her friends again.

“I love you. I miss you,” Jeyne cried into the phone. “I am terrible at goodbyes so I will say good-bye, Alayne Stone.”

Sansa smiled. “Good-bye, Jeyne Westerling.”

“Wait! Give me your number—”

But Sansa hung up. It was probably best to sever that tie just in case. It was the oldest trick in the book for a mobster to use the people one cared about against them.Besides, keeping that tie meant having to keep lying to Jeyne, and Sansa was just tired of it. 

After she’d gathered herself together, she recorded a message on her phone to the kids in her class and sent it from her Wales email account to Willas. She wanted them to know she was safe, that she was happy, and that she missed them tremendously. She also told them she wished them all the best in life, and to never stop dreaming.

Then she’d reclined back on the sand, spent.

“Hey, Little Bird.”

Sansa opened her eyes and squinted over at Sandor as he sat down beside her.

She sat up. “Hey. Meeting over?”

“Yeah, it’s over. Jon’s going over a few things with the others. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I just called my friend Jeyne in Wales to tell her I was alive and well. Then I recorded a video message to the kids I teach to tell them the same.”

“That why you look like you’ve been crying?”

She nodded, feeling another wave of emotion come on. “It’s strange that I should miss people so much that didn’t even know my real name. Or my real story. Jeyne thinks I left home in Wisconsin because of my verbally abusive and controlling father.”

Sandor arched a brow. “Were you thinking of your sister and Jon with that one?”

Sansa smiled and nodded. “I knew you would get it.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, well…”

“Is it weird that I should feel so sad over people that didn’t even know the real me? Shit, when I moved out there I dyed my hair brown and cut it to my shoulders.”

Sandor made a face. “I’m glad that didn’t keep.”

“Well, when I got comfortable, I let it all grow out.”

“I don’t think it’s odd to miss them, Little Bird. You were there for three years. You made connections, and the life you led there was real even if they didn’t know about the circumstances surrounding it. I’m sure you didn’t spend all day every day talking about your verbally abusive and controlling father.”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”

“Think you’ll ever see them again?”

“I’d like to but…I just don’t know what’s going to happen here, and if I have to leave again it’s probably not in my best interests to go back to the place that everyone here knows about.”

Sandor nodded. “Probably not.”

Silence fell. And what had once been a comfortable silence between her and Sandor now Sansa felt a tad uncomfortable. Her thoughts turned to what Jon had told her earlier about Sandor being in love with her.

“So, um, while I was gone…” she began. 

“Yeah?”

“Did you see anyone? Are you seeing anyone now?”

He heaved a sigh and looked down before looking back up at the water. “No. Who would want a scarred dog like me?"

"Don't say that," she said vehemently. "I hate it when you say stuff like that." 

"It's the truth."

"No, it's not. Any woman would be lucky to have you, Sandor. Once you got all your barking out of the way."

"I'm not a dog..." he said slowly and then looked at her in amusement. "But I bark?" 

She laughed. "Yes, but everyone barks. You've met Jon, right?"

Sandor chuckled. "Best not let him hear that, Little Bird."

She smiled. "Why? Am I in trouble for something already?"

He sent her a warning look. "Too soon."

She sighed. "Yeah, I know."

Sandor looked out at the water again. "Not sure how many women would want to be saddled to a man who spends his days guarding another woman. And a beautiful one at that."

Sansa found herself gobsmacked by that one. Why would he say something like that? And how did she respond to it? Was it just a casual observance - oh, the weather is really nice today and by the way you're beautiful? Or was it indicative of his alleged feelings for her? 

But Sandor was too smart to make a pass at her...although he had told her just the day before that he take her away from here if that's what she wanted. 

“Sandor, you wanted to talk to me?”

Jon’s meeting was apparently done.

She didn’t look back at him. After she’d told him that as long as she was part of this world she did not want to have kids, he had muttered he needed to take a shower and hit the bathroom. They hadn’t spoken much since, only a little at breakfast before everyone arrived, and then she’d skipped out as quickly as she could.

“I do,” Sandor said and got to his feet. “Alone?”

Jon didn’t answer, not in words anyway, and Sansa imagined he nodded for she heard them shuffling off. She looked down at her phone, tempted to check her email and see if Willas had gotten her message yet. If he’d replied.

It was probably for the best that she didn’t check though she wanted to. That life was over.

Who knew what lay in store for her next.

xxxxxxxxxx

"What is it you wanted?" Jon asked, trying not to let his annoyance show that Sandor had pretty much beelined for Sansa as soon as their meeting had adjourned. 

Sandor scratched the back of his neck and glanced over his shoulder at Sansa, which further annoyed Jon. 

"She can't hear, Sandor," Jon said tersely. 

"Something's going on with Tormund and Arya," Sandor told him. "They were whispering to each other about something the other day at the warehouse and when I showed up, Tormund practically ran off."

Jon frowned. "I noticed something yesterday between them too." 

"Arya has never been a fan of Sansa's, and she's never had a particularly great attitude to begin with, but it seems even worse now. I just wanted to give you a heads up. I don't trust her around Sansa."

Jon clenched his jaw. "You think she would actually hurt her own sister?"

"Yes," Sandor said plainly. "I do."

"Thank you for telling me. I'll keep it in mind."

Sandor nodded. "Anything you'd like me to do, boss?"

Jon shook his head. "I’d like to take Sansa out today. I want you and Grenn to be close by."

"Roger that," Sandor said. “Wait for you at the house?”

Jon nodded and Sandor strolled off. Jon watched him go over to Sansa first and tap her on the shoulder. Sansa looked up at him and smiled, the beatific smile of hers, and then whatever Sandor said made her laugh. He walked off and she glanced over at Jon, her smile fading, and then looked back out at the water. 

_Don't let your jealousy make things worse,_ the little voice in his head, what Sansa called his conscience, warned him. _Don't give her a reason to turn to Sandor._

Shit. Now that was something he had to worry about? It stood to reason though, didn't it? The way she smiled at him. Trusted him. Got along with much better than she was with her husband currently. 

And then after this morning’s revelations…

It was all Jon had been able to think about it. Even in the meeting his mind had kept drifting to her declaration that as long as she was part of this world there would be no children. 

It was something that he and Sansa had talked about before they’d gotten married. Not in any great length, just that it would happen. Then, after Robb and Ned, her tune had changed. They’d talked about it when she thought she might be pregnant and she had thought it was a bad time to get pregnant. Jon had gotten busy with the things going on that he’d put it aside. Then she’d left, while pregnant, in part because she did not want to raise a child in this life. 

It had hurt him to realize that there was the very real possibility he would not be able to have children with Sansa. If there was anyone born to be a mother, it was her. She would make an incredible mother. And there was no one else he could ever imagine being the mother of his children. 

He’d thought about it – about him and Sansa having children. The extra guards they’d need. The extra security in all aspects of their life. And then there was the matter of that child growing up and…inheriting the family business? Did Jon want any child of his inheriting the business? Did he want his child growing up with so much violence around him or her? He could barely handle it when it came to Sansa…

It hurt. It worried him. She might decide to go so that she could one day have children with someone who wasn’t part of this world. Someone who was safe. Someone that didn’t require that she and their kids be guarded. 

No. No. He could not and would not let that happen. He had to find a way to fix this. To give her what she wanted – and what he wanted too – and to guarantee their safety. Guarantee that their child would not inherit the family business. He could do that; he would do that. 

Jon made his way over to where she was and didn’t miss how she stiffened when he sat down next to her. “Hey,” he said softly. 

“Hey.”

“I’m done with what I have to do today and thought maybe you and I could spend the day together.”

She looked over at him. “You still want to spend time with me?”

“Yes,” he said and moved some hair over her shoulder. 

“What did you have in mind?”

He smiled. “How about the art museum. You always liked going there.”

Her smile wasn’t as enthusiastic as he’d hoped it would be, but she nodded and said, “Sure. That sounds nice.”

“Maybe we could just put a pin in everything else and pretend for one afternoon we got it all figured out.”

“Do you really think that’s possible?”

“I’d like to try. I want… I want to have fun with you again, Sansa. Remember when we would actually laugh and tease each other and have fun?”

“Do you remember when you didn’t have a two-by-four up your ass?” A nervous laugh escaped her and Jon just looked at her witheringly. She shrugged, looking utterly unapologetic. He supposed he deserved that. 

“I’ll make sure to leave it at home. Can we try for fun?”

“Sure. We can give it a whirl. Can we start with you feeding me?”

He got to his feet and held out his hand. She took it and got to her feet. “Sure,” he said. “How about that diner you like? The one that serves breakfast all day and has those blueberry pancakes you like?”

Now she smiled for real. “Yes!” She smirked and poked his shoulder. “Race you.” And then she tore off to the house and after a second – to give her a head start – Jon grinned and ran after her.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some more progress, but it feels like some filler stuff.

“Should we get some food for Sandor and Grenn?” Sansa asked as she proceeded to pour blueberry syrup over her blueberry pancakes. 

Jon refrained from taking a bite of his burger to watch her. He’d never seen anyone other than his wife put that much syrup on anything before. Sure the three pancakes on her plate took up the circumference of said plate, but it was still an obscene amount of syrup. 

“Jon?” she prompted. 

He gestured to her. “Sorry, I was just wondering if you wanted me to call the waitress for another thing of syrup since you’ve nearly depleted that one.”

“Ha ha ha. In all seriousness though, I may need another one.”

Jon gaped at her. “Seriously?”

“The pancakes are big and they soak up a lot…”

“Sansa, there is currently more syrup than pancakes on your plate.”

“Don’t judge me.”

He started to laugh. “You and your sweet tooth.”

She grinned and dug into her pancakes. She lifted a bite and it dripped with syrup; she looked at it triumphantly and then shoved it in her mouth and moaned. “Ooh yeah. That’s the stuff.”

Jon just watched her with a tender smile on his face. “Can I have a bite?”

“Sure!” she chirped and forked off a piece of the gooey pancake and held it out to him. He closed his mouth around the fork and was assaulted with the tang of blueberry syrup. “Good?” she asked. 

He nodded. “Though I think my teeth are aching now.”

She shrugged. “Small price to pay for such sugary goodness. So, should we get something for Sandor and Grenn?”

“We can,” Jon said slowly. “Thought you might want to pretend they weren’t following us.”

“What’s the point? I mean really. Having guards around somewhere, it’s just how it goes, right?”

He nodded and bit into his burger. After he swallowed, he took a sip of his Coke. “I feel like I should apologize for that.”

“For having guards following us?”

“Yes.”

She stabbed a sausage link with her fork and ran it through the syrup. “It makes me feel a bit like a celebrity. It also makes me nervous. Like the potential of danger is just lurking right around the corner.”

“It might not be needed for a day at the museum, but I don’t like to take chances.”

“I know,” she said, and popped the sausage in her mouth. After she’d washed the sausage down with a sip of orange juice, she said, “Can you imagine your paranoia if we had kids?”

Jon put his burger down and looked at her. “I thought we were going to put a pin in that for now?”

“We were, but it felt like a good moment to bring it up.”

“All right, if you want to do this now we will. I’m not going to pretend that the idea of us having kids doesn’t make me happy. I do want it. When we manage to get through the muck we’re in, I’d want that. A little you and me that we made together.”

“When! Not if.” She waved her empty fork at him. “I see what you did there.”

“What can I say? I believe in the power of positive thinking.”

That made her laugh out loud, and Jon couldn’t help but join in. “However,” he said when their laughter stopped. “I realize how hard it would be.”

She watched him, no doubt waiting for the “but”.

When the “but” didn’t come, she supplied it for him. “But…”

“There is no but.”

She narrowed her eyes. 

“I don’t know what the answer is,” he said. “I don’t have one. I just know that I want to find one. I want a life with you, Sansa, and part of that is having a family with you. What I have to do in order to make that possible for us…I don’t know yet.”

She looked a bit surprised by that. “Is this something I could help you with? Perhaps we could brainstorm together?”

That was hopeful, but Jon didn’t want to acknowledge it out loud lest she take it back. “Sure. Any ideas?”

“Well, in the spirit of this full disclosure thing we’ve got going on, I feel I should probably let you know that this mob life? I don’t want it. I’m over it. And I really don’t see a way for us to have children while we’re part of it.”

“Are you planning on leaving me already?” he asked. His voice shook and he forced himself to calm down even as he felt a cold sweat come over him. 

She looked down at her plate and pushed a sausage link though the syrup on her plate. “No. I’m not actually.”

“You sound surprised by that.”

“I am.”

Okay, that hurt a little. “Do you still love me?” he asked and braced himself for the worst. 

She looked up at him and met his gaze straight on. “I never stopped loving you, Jon.”

Jon reached out and gripped the forkless hand. He kissed her palm and then pressed it against the side of his face and closed his eyes. “Sansa,” he breathed. 

“This doesn’t mean that if we can’t figure some of this out I won’t leave still, Jon.”

He looked at her. “I know.”

“Do you? Because you have a tendency to only hear what you want to hear. I do think it’s possible that sometimes love just isn’t enough. If I didn’t believe that I might not have left.”

“You’re giving me something to work with here, Sansa. Some hope that there is still something left to salvage.”

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him in confusion. “Have you been thinking there wasn’t this whole time?”

He shook his head and kissed her palm again. “I thought there was, but until you did too I didn’t have much hope. Now you’re with me—”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We have a lot to work out between us. We’re not fixed.”

“No, we’re not. But now we’re both fighting.”

She pulled her hand away. “I don’t consider myself to be fighting,” she said, knowing that this might hurt him, but she still felt she should be honest. “I consider it an acknowledgement that yes, there is still something there. Something that never left. That doesn’t mean you’re excused for your actions. That doesn’t mean that what I want has gone away. It just means that I’m willing to see if it can be fixed.”

He looked at her thoughtfully. “It means that now you’re willing to try in truth.”

She nodded, knowing that in doing so she was admitting that before she hadn’t really been trying at all. Yes, she had reached out a few times to him, but it had been half-hearted. It wasn’t until last night that she felt she had put forth a real effort, and even then it had been a wary one. And honestly, she was still wary. Wary that this could and would work. Not to mention afraid of what would happen to her if she allowed herself to let go with him completely. 

Yet she realized she was going to have to let some of that fear go; let down a few walls. He’d shown her the softer side of himself last night. He’d opened up to her and expressed his fears and discontent. Now it was her turn to share. 

_One step at a time_ , she told herself. 

xxxxxxx

Sansa squinted at the display before her. “You are seeing what I’m seeing, right?” she asked Jon, who was standing beside her. 

“An open book with flat stones across the pages and cartoon eyes projected onto the stones? Yeah. I am.”

“I really think it’s a commentary on—”

He nudged her with his elbow. “Sansa, come on.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it. I feel like I just don’t get a lot of contemporary art.” She looked up at him. “I see this and I think – I could have done that, but I guess the difference is I didn’t?” 

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Solid answer,” she said with a laugh. 

“This place just makes me feel I should be doing more things like this. I used to have culture in my life. I used to do things like this.”

“You’re right. You did. There’s a nerd underneath that suit, don’t think I don’t know that.”

His lips quirked up into a lopsided smile. “I know you know that.”

“We could toss all your old moleskins in a trash barrel, kind of like Oscar the Grouch’s barrel? And then we could submit it to wherever artists submit stuff and title it ‘Where Moleskins Go To Die’.”

Jon laughed. “Too bad we didn’t take a picture of the trash can when you’d attempted to try painting, and then got fed up and tossed everything in there. We could have titled that ‘Disgruntled Artist’.”

Sansa giggled and leaned into him. Jon wrapped an arm around her and steered her away from the creepy projected eyes. 

“Can we see the Monet’s now?” she asked on a whine. 

“Yes, dear.”

She nudged him with her elbow and he grinned down at her. 

Once they got to the Monet’s, Sansa sat down on one of the loveseats facing “Water Lilies” and patted the seat next to her. Jon sat down beside her and was surprised – and incredibly pleased – when she put her head on his shoulder. He was afraid to move. Afraid to breathe. He didn’t want to shatter this moment. If someone was to take a picture of them now he would title it “Work in Progress”. Together, as a couple, and as individuals too. Though, Jon could admit that he was more of a work in progress than she was. Sansa had always been self-possessed, but she lacked that bit of self-consciousness that used to follow her. 

“I never asked how the meeting went,” she said after a while. 

“It was fine.”

“Arya show up?”

“Yes, but late.”

“Did you get a chance to talk to her at all about last night?”

“No. Sansa, I don’t want to talk about Arya.”

“Nor do I. But if I feel like I need to know what’s going on in the event I have to deal with her.”

“Just don’t deal with her,” Jon said. “That’s my advice. Just stay away from her.”

“Happily.”

After another couple hours of meandering through the museum, Jon and Sansa made their way to the gift shop. When Jon went to the cash register to pay for a print of ‘Water Lilies’ for Sansa, she came up beside him and slid a moleskin toward the register. He looked at her in surprise and she shrugged. “I figured maybe it would be a good time to start writing again.”

“Thank you,” he said, feeling a bit emotional that she’d thought to pick out something for him. 

“What did you get?” she asked him, nodding to the bag on the counter with her print nestled in between two pieces of cardboard so it wouldn’t get bent. 

“A print of ‘Water Lilies’.”

She smiled broadly at him, and then kissed his cheek and wandered off. 

xxxxxxxx

“I feel like a pack mule,” Jon said. 

“You’re not a pack mule.”

“I didn’t say I was one. I said I felt like one.”

Sansa rolled her eyes as she grabbed a package of chocolate morsels off the shelf in front of her and tossed them in the red basket Jon was holding. One of the things that Sansa wanted to do after the museum was get a few things so she could cook and bake again. She needed something to do with herself, and cooking and baking had always given her time to think. And wanting something to do brought up another thing on her mind…

“So, another thing I’ve been thinking about,” she said slowly as they meandered down the rest of the aisle and headed towards the dairy section. “I need some form of income.”

Jon looked at her in confusion. “I gave you money.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I want to work. I don’t want to mooch off you; I have my degree and I enjoy teaching. I want to look into doing that here.”

“Okay.”

She smiled. “Really?”

“The Lannisters are fuckers, but even they’re not low enough to go after you in a school.”

She stopped in the middle of the aisle and turned to face him. Thankfully, no one was around. “Put the basket down, please.”

He did as he looked at her in question. Then with a grin, she launched herself in his arms. He caught her, laughing. Desperately he wanted her to kiss him, but she didn’t. 

“Oh. My. God.”

Jon and Sansa froze. Sansa slid down to the floor and turned to face the all-too-familiar voice. Jon kept one arm around her as though Cersei Lannister was planning to attack her right there in the grocery store. 

“You’re alive,” Cersei said, looking at Sansa as though she was a ghost. 

Sansa wiggled her fingers in a half-hearted wave. “Surprise.”


	27. Chapter 27

“Where have you been?” Cersei asked, her jaw still fairly hanging open as she stared at Sansa. 

“I went undercover as a singer. Are you familiar with Lana Del Ray?” 

Jon’s answer was a bit more aggressive: “None of your fucking business.”

Cersei glared at him and Sansa wrapped an arm around Jon’s waist and squeezed. He didn’t know who she had with her or what she might do and Sansa really didn’t want to start something in the middle of a grocery store.

Then Jaime Lannister came waltzing up beside his sister, looking at Sansa in the same kind of wonder that Cersei was. Sansa’s gaze strayed to his hand. Or rather, where a hand should be. It looked like he had a prosthetic. 

He must have seen her looking at it for he lifted it up and moved the prosthetic from side-to-side. “I do hope you don’t plan to leave your husband again anytime soon, Sansa,” Jaime said. “He didn't take it well.”

“Don’t speak to her,” Jon snarled. “Don’t say her name. Don’t even look at her.”

“Oh, bother,” Jaime said and made a show of turning his gaze away. “Is this better?”

If it was anyone else, Sansa might have laughed. But this was the Lannisters. The family that had taken her father, her brother, and to some extent, her husband. Being away from it all in Wales hadn’t dulled her loss, but it had gotten her away from the violence. From the constant threat. From the anger that would bubble up when she saw Cersei and Jaime. Myrcella had been a young girl caught up in the life just as any child Sansa and Jon could have had. She’d been an innocent of sorts. At least that was how Sansa had seen her. When Jon had taken Olly’s life, he had perhaps thrust Myrcella firmly into the spiral of hate and revenge. But then Olly had been a danger to all of them and Sansa knew that in this world there weren’t many options. It was kill or be killed. There was no mercy. 

All of that was exactly what Sansa had wanted to get away from. There was no peace in it, just a never-ending cycle of hate that bred more hate, revenge that bred more revenge, and violence that called for even more violence. 

Had Cersei thought about that before she’d had Myrcella? Had she worried over her daughter? Had she at any point wished to escape it for the sake of her daughter? Or was she so entrenched in it that she instilled in Myrcella hate for the Starks and anyone related to them? Had Myrcella’s wish for Sansa’s death been born out of the hatred that had been instilled in her, or had it began only because of Olly? In Sansa’s own experience, she had grown up knowing that the Lannisters were evil people that wanted to hurt her family and would, given the chance. She disliked them insomuch as one could people she didn’t even know. People that she’d been told meant them all harm, but had yet to experience the harm they could do. As she got older and she began to witness and understand how her father was in danger every time he left the house, her dislike had something to dig into. A firm ground in which to let the roots of the contention between the families extend and grown as hate within her. 

It wasn’t hate based on who they were as people for she didn’t know them. Only what they could do to her and her family. What she felt more was anger and resentment Angry that none of them were every truly safe. Resentful that they led very different lives from that of her friends and their families – what little friends she was able to keep. Not many parents wanted their son or daughter to be the friend of a mobster’s daughter. Most normal people weren’t comfortable with the idea of their child needing a guard with them if they were to go to a movie with the son or daughter of Ned Stark. 

After her brother and father were killed, her mother lost her mind, and Jon became the perfect Mob Boss, Sansa did find she hated them for what they took from her. For what her family had become – depleted, broken, and lost. And she was trapped in a way she hadn’t fully realized before. When she discovered she was pregnant, she saw the cycle play out. She saw how she’d trap her child just as she’d been trapped. 

She didn’t want to be like her mother and lost a husband and a son – or a daughter. She didn’t want to risk her child being caught in something he or she couldn’t possibly understand. Just as Sansa had believed Myrcella hadn’t completely comprehended it all. And now after what Jon had confessed to her that morning, she didn’t want her son or daughter to have their hearts so irreparably broken by losing someone who should not have been part of any of it, but had not been able to get out of it. 

Kind of like Jon. An outsider welcomed into the family and then put in charge when the leaders were dead and he was all that was left. 

Good God, she hated all of it. 

She wanted away from it. 

She wanted Jon away from it. 

He never should have been part of it to begin with. What had her father been thinking? What had Robb been thinking? Jon had been an innocent. And he’d been ruined. 

“Was I right then, Snow? She left you?” Jaime asked. 

“Shut up, Jaime, just shut up,” Sansa snapped. 

He looked at her in surprise, forgetting Jon’s warning. It was the most Sansa had ever spoken to him. There were usually guards in between her and any Lannister and Sansa had been trained early on to say nothing to them. 

“Kitten grew claws,” Jaime murmured. 

Jon lunged forward. “What did I tell you? I told you not to look at her. Not to speak to her.”

Sansa grabbed his arm and attempted to pull him back. “Jon, just let it go. He’s not worth it.”

Jaime pointed at Jon. “You’ve got some anger management issues, buddy.”

“Fuck you,” Jon snapped. 

“Jaime, let’s go,” Cersei said. “Now isn’t the time.”

Jon’s attention zeroed in on her. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

Cersei smirked and began walking away, pulling Jaime with her. “Come on,” she said. 

Jon took a step toward them, and Sansa pulled on his arm. “Jon, no.”

Jon clenched his jaw, his hands balled into fists at his side. “She made a threat, Sansa,” he hissed at her. 

“No, she told Jaime now wasn’t the time to start anything just as I’m telling you—”

“Why do you continue to be so blind?” he shouted at her. 

She hadn’t been prepared for that outburst considering the nice day they’d had – though she wasn’t sure why since he’d proven his moods could swing so drastically from one extreme to the next. 

“They mean to harm you, Sansa!” he shouted again. 

A mother and her young son passed by them. The mother ushered her son quickly away and the boy looked at them with wide eyes. 

Sansa put her hand over his mouth. “Stop it,” she snapped lowly. 

He pushed away from her and grabbed the basket and her hand and yanked her down the aisle. “We’re leaving,” he said. “Now.”

Sansa dug in her heels and yanked her hand from his. She looked at him defiantly. “You don’t have to drag me,” she said. “I’m perfectly capable of walking beside you.”

He pursed his lips together and pulled out his phone from his pocket. Sansa figured it was Sandor and Grenn when he said furiously into the phone, “Tell Sandor to get his ass in here now! Pull up at the exit and keep your eyes peeled. Jaime and Cersei and God knows who the fuck else are in here. ”

“Do you really think they’ll do something to us in here?” she asked as she hurriedly ran to catch up with him as they made their way to the cash register. 

“I’m not taking any chances,” he said without looking at her. 

_And so it begins_ , Sansa thought grimly. 

How nice it was not to have to look over her shoulder constantly or worry about where Sandor was when she went places in Wales. Now, as she and Jon waited in line, he was practically pressed against her back, his hand on her hip. Her human shield. Sandor trudged in, looking like someone you definitely didn’t want to fuck with. He waited at the base of the register for them and Sandor could see his eyes were scanning up and down the front end. 

Sansa hadn’t thought Cersei had meant anything by what she’d said. It was possible she was wrong about that, just as she had _possibly_ been wrong about Myrcella, but now she felt actual fear begin to creep in. Would they do something here? She supposed they could. The element of surprise and all that. She barely paid attention when it was time to pay. Her eyes were now peeled to any potential danger. When Jon reached out behind her and handed the cashier his card, Sansa saw Jaime, Cersei and some unknown man come out of an aisle. They seemed to be coming toward them. Jaime kept his gaze trained on them. He started to reach a hand inside his suit jacket and Sansa shouted, “No!” and pushed Jon away, putting him behind her. 

Jaime pulled out a handkerchief. He handed it to Cersei, and looked at Sansa with arched brows and a smirk on his handsome face. The man behind them eyed somewhere past them – no doubt, Sandor – and they kept going until they were out of sight. 

Tears welled up in Sansa’s eyes as her fear began to abate. But only somewhat. She wanted out of the grocery store. 

“Sansa,” Jon murmured from behind her. He turned her with his hand on her waist and drew her up against him. Sansa buried her face in his neck, wetting the collar of his shirt. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“I want to go home,” she said, tension and fear laced through her voice. “Can we just go home now?”

“Yes,” he whispered and put her in front of him. With his hand at her back, he guided her to the exit. Sandor came up behind Jon acting as his shield, and together they all walked outside. 

Grenn was right there at the curb and Jon ushered Sansa and then himself into the car. He gave Sandor his keys for his car, and after the door was shut, Grenn sped off. 

Jon gathered her close, stroking her hair and kissing her forehead. 

“Where were you two?” he asked Grenn in that low, cold mob boss voice. It sent a shiver up Sansa’s spine. “Jaime and Cersei Lannister were in there with a guard, possibly more, and where were you?”

“Jon, they could have been in there before we got there,” Sansa murmured. 

“Boss, we had our eyes glued to the door, I swear,” Grenn said. “We didn’t see them.”

Jon said nothing and that seemed to make Grenn even more worried. And scared. 

When they got home, Jon gave Grenn their grocery bags and told him to unpack them. Arya was in the kitchen when they got inside and she looked up from the gun she was cleaning at Jon and then at Sansa, eyes narrowing. “What happened to the Princess?” she asked.

“Go to fucking hell, Arya,” Sansa snapped. 

“You first, bitch,” Arya snarled. 

“Get out of here, Arya, now! Go home! ” Jon shouted at her. “I don’t want to see you.”

Arya glared at them both, grabbed her gun, and stormed out the door. 

Jon pushed Sansa in the direction of their bedroom and once inside, he shut the door and locked it. Sansa sat down on the bed, her hands under her thighs. 

She started to cry softly. “I don’t like it, Jon. I don’t like that fear.”

He sat down beside her and tugged on her. She went willingly onto his lap and he cradled her close in his arms. “I know. I wasn’t prepared for it either.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him in question. “What do you mean?”

“Worrying about you again. It was different when you were gone…but now…I’ve never been more afraid.”

“You didn’t show it,” she said on a sniffle. 

“I can’t. I saw it too, saw Jaime reaching inside his suit jacket and it was like everything went in slow motion. I was about to shove you back to Sandor when you pushed me away.” He cradled her face in his hands. “Sweetheart, you…” He looked at her in awe. “You tried to protect me.”

“I told you I still loved you,” she said as though he should have known that already. 

He pressed his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. He breathed her in. She breathed him in. She lifted her head and looked at him, at this man that infuriated her to no end. At this man she would have taken a bullet for, too. He swept the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip and she knew he wanted to kiss her. She also knew that despite all the lines he’d crossed since showing up in Wales, this was the one he wouldn’t cross. 

Since there was no greater fear than the one she’d just experienced in that grocery store when she thought Jaime Lannister was reaching for a gun and was going to shoot them, Sansa bridged the gap between them and kissed her husband.


	28. Chapter 28

_Sansa is kissing me. This is happening._

Her kiss was tentative. Almost like the first time they’d ever kissed when she’d been nervous and vibrating with anxiousness in his arms. Jon had been nervous that first time too, as a matter of fact. He had wanted it to be good for both of them, and he’d been afraid that his eagerness would show and scare her off. 

He was struggling with the same problem now, yet he let his desire and eagerness take over. He hadn’t kissed his wife in three long years. Hadn’t felt her soft lips against his, hadn’t felt her breath whisper across his lips, nor felt the slide of her tongue against his in so long. Too long. He wanted it all at once now – her taste in his mouth, her body pressed against his, her scent surrounding him, and the little moans she emitted in the back of her throat. 

He tilted his head, changing the angle of the kiss, and pushed her back onto the bed. Her hands gripped his shirt in her delicate little hands and he pressed his lips harder against hers, licking inside her mouth and groaning when their tongues met. 

Her hands moved to his shoulders and her legs parted, allowing him to settle in between them. He groaned when his hardening cock made contact with the vee of her thighs. 

“Jon,” she gasped, and ripped her mouth from his. 

“More,” he muttered, and chased her lips with his own. He captured them again and kissed her harder. Deeper. One hand fitted at the back of her head and the other over a breast. He wanted all of her all at once. 

“Whoa Nelly,” she murmured as she broke the kiss again, and pushed a hand against his chest to prevent him from leaning in and kissing her again. 

He was panting. So was she. She was looking at him as though she couldn’t believe that had just happened. Yet there was lust in her eyes, too. Her cornflower blue had darkened to an indigo. He shifted slightly, rubbing himself against her again. She bit her lip and shut her eyes briefly. 

He waited for her to take the lead. She pushed at him and he rolled off of her and onto his back. He shut his eyes, savoring the taste of her in his mouth. “Christ, Sansa.”

“I know.”

“I want you inside you so much right now,” he told her. 

She sat up and Jon gripped the bedspread in his fist so he wouldn’t do something stupid like grab her and pull her back. She got up off the bed and went to the windows. “How about some air, hmmm?” she said and opened one. Then another. 

She stood in front of one, just staring outside and attempting to even out her breathing. Jon watched her, craving her so badly his body ached with it. 

“What are you thinking?” he asked. “Please tell me you don’t regret that.”

She turned and faced him, looking startled. “No, Jon. I don’t regret that.”

He tried to smile light-heartedly. It was hard to slice through all that desire and lust and pure fucking need with lightness. “Then why are you over there and I’m over here?” He extended a hand and wiggled his fingers. “Come here, sweetling.”

“I’m not ready for sex,” she told him plainly. She actually looked sad about that and Jon wondered why. For him? Was she afraid she was disappointing him? She was, but he wasn’t going to pressure her to have sex with him. And when all his blood wasn’t in his dick and he could think clearer, he would understand even further that it wasn’t the right time for them. Not yet. 

But then he thought of how she’d kissed him and how it felt to kiss her again and he grew harder. He looked up at the ceiling and willed his blood to cool. He ran a hand down his face and sighed softly. He didn’t want her to think he was angry with her. He wasn’t. Instead, he felt they’d turned a rather large corner. Not just in the fact that she’d kissed him, but in the fact that she now understood the fear. The very raw and absolute fear that would consume him when he thought of her being taken away from him permanently. 

Life was so uncertain. People were there one day and then gone the next. Sometimes an illness took them, or a tragic accident. Typically, people didn’t spend every single day obsessing over the fear that someone could crash the car of their beloved and take them away forever. They lived their lives and went about their business. 

Jon, on the other hand, had felt that fear grip him every time Sansa left the house without him. Car accidents happened every day, and yes that could happen just as well as being shot by their enemies, but it was the fear of their enemies harming her that was at the forefront of his mind. For that seemed more likely to him than an accident. Their enemies had already claimed Ned and Robb after all. Not to mention the others he’d learned about when he’d joined the organization. They had been before his time with the Starks, but still. They were dead because of the Lannisters. 

He never quite breathed right until she was with him again. Even when he had business to tend to he was cognizant of the fact that Sansa was out, and while she was out she was a target. He trusted Sandor completely, knowing the guard would protect her with his life, but it wasn’t the same as being there with her. 

Today, she understood that fear. She had tried to protect him just as he had wanted to protect her. 

He heard her move and he looked over at her. He watched her as she came to lean against the bedpost. She looked down at him thoughtfully and he sat up. “What is it, love?” he asked. 

“I’m sorry for what my father and brother did to you,” she said. 

He blinked. “What?”

“You were an innocent. So was I for that matter despite the circumstances of my birth. I didn’t have much of a choice being raised in it as I was, but you did and—”

“Sansa, what are you talking about?” Jon asked slowly. 

“The mob life. You were an innocent before you got involved with what my father and brother were doing. Maybe Robb didn’t have a choice either, or maybe he did and he just chose wrong, but you…you had a choice. Why did you choose to be part of it? Did you know what you were getting into? Did you think about it at all?”

Jon sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Your family was my family. I had no one who cared for me. You know that. You Starks were the only ones that cared whether I lived or died.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “If any of us had thought about it, had really thought about it, we would have realized that bringing you in was. That it was just sentencing you to a life of violence, fear, and hate. We may as well have just signed your death certificate.”

“Hey, I’m not dead yet,” he attempted to tease. 

Sansa wasn’t in the mood for teasing though. “Yeah. Yet. Don’t you regret it? Would you go back and do it differently if you could?”

“I try not to think about it,” he admitted. 

“Think about it now.”

“What’s the point, Sansa? It doesn’t change anything. I’m still here doing the job. Having regrets, wishing I could change the past – it doesn’t do anything to change where I am now.”

“Maybe it doesn’t change the present, but maybe it could affect your future.”

“How?” he asked in bewilderment. 

She sat down facing him, one leg bent towards the middle of the bed, and the other over the edge of the bed. “You must have had goals and dreams about what you wanted to do with your life before we sucked you in.”

“I wanted to do you,” he said with a laugh. “That’s what I wanted to do.”

“Jon, I’m being serious,” she said exasperatedly. 

“Sansa, I don’t understand what it is you want from me.”

“I want to know what you might have done had you not started working for my father.”

“After getting away from my mother? Probably…I don’t know, finished my undergrad and go on to get my Masters. I thought I might have become a librarian.”

Sansa smiled. “I could see you as a librarian. You would have been that hot librarian that all the girls would have fawned over.”

“You think so?” he asked with a grin. 

She nodded. “I would have had to fend them all off.”

He smiled and shifted closer to her. He dug his hand into her hair and cupped the back of her head. He drew her in close and kissed her again. Slower this time. 

Sansa pulled back, her hands on his shoulders. 

“Rumor has it I’ve only got eyes for you,” he said huskily. 

“Jon?”

“Hmm?” he hummed as he tugged on her hair until she dropped her head back. He began dropping kisses along the length of her neck. 

“If you could leave it all now and know that it would be okay that you did, that there would be no repercussions, would you?”

Jon let go of her and she looked at him with purposeful determination. He sighed. “Sansa, you know I can’t—”

“Pretend. Just for a minute. Would you?”

“Would you be there?”

“I could be.”

He looked down and sighed. “I don’t know why I’m having such a hard time answering a hypothetical.” He pursed his lips together. “No, I know why. Because this is all I know. It’s all I’ve done for so long and once you’re in you don’t get out, so I never really considered leaving an option.”

“What if it was? And what if I was with you?”

He looked at her. “You want me to leave.”

“I want you to consider the possibility.”

“Sansa, you know how this goes. The only way out is if you’re dead.”

“I did it,” she said softly. “And I’m not dead. I was only discovered by coincidence—”

“I don’t want to talk about that, Sansa,” Jon said a bit harshly. 

“I’m just saying it’s possible.”

His mind reeled at the idea of it. If he faked his death to escape how would his men react? Would they look for him, thinking he pulled a Sansa? Or would they leave him be knowing it was obviously what he wanted? Who would be in charge after? If anyone would look for him, it would be Arya and for sure she’d be on a rampage if she knew he left for Sansa. To be with Sansa. Panic settled over him. She wanted him to leave. She wanted to go herself. “You’re not leaving me, are you?” he asked. 

“No,” she said. 

Jon swore he could hear her say _“Not yet”_ in his head. “Can I think about it for a while?”

She nodded and placed her hands in her lap. “Of course.”

He forced a smile. “Can I kiss you again?”

Her smile was impish. “I kissed you the first time.”

He started to lean in. “Can you do it again?”

She put her finger to his lips. “Maybe after you feed me again.” 

He growled and pushed her hand away. He took her face in his hands and kissed her again, even as she laughed into it. He laughed too. He nibbled at her lips and she moaned and pushed him back. He chased her lips and she granted him another two. 

Then her stomach grumbled and he laughed. “Okay, okay, I got it. Food.”

She smiled brightly and got up off the bed. She held out her hand to him and he took it, so happy that she’d offered it. That she’d kissed him. That she wasn’t leaving. He wouldn’t think about “not yet”. 

“Jon, will you really think about it?” she asked somewhat nervously. 

He nodded. “Yes, I will.”

“Thank you,” she said and pulled him to the door.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa's dress: [](http://s1132.photobucket.com/user/Janina44/media/LampF%20dress_zps7ktpfouq.jpg.html)

The “not yet” that Sansa didn’t say lingered between them, or at least it did for Jon. He was pretty sure Sansa wasn't aware of how he had put those words in her mouth, or _not_ as the case may be since she didn’t actually say “not yet” when he asked her if she was leaving him. She’d said no. He’d heard “No, not yet.”

That was not her fault, and as such not her job to assuage him and his fears. Yet his fears needed assuaging nonetheless, and so Jon just made sure to keep himself as accessible as possible to her. That meant letting Tormund and Arya take care of a few things in his stead so that he could spend some time with his wife. He didn't mind though; he got the reports on what was going on, and he really didn't miss being involved. Not when he had Sansa to spend time with. 

This was how he’d ended up sitting on the beach with her, legs criss-crossed, back straight, and eyes closed. Sansa decided he needed to learn how to meditate. He didn’t think telling her he meditated the best while cleaning his gun.

“Why are your eyes open?” he asked her.

She looked at him. “Why are yours?”

“I wanted to see what you were doing.”

“I’m meditating.”

“But your eyes are open.”

“Yes, you don't always have to close your eyes. You can keep your eyes open and just soften your gaze on something a few feet away from you."

“Then why did you tell me to close my eyes?” he asked.

“I thought it might help you since you’re a beginner.”

He nodded, accepting that answer, and then closed his eyes again. “And what am I supposed to do?”

He heard her sigh heavily and he bit back a laugh. He might have been purposely antagonizing her. He always had enjoyed teasing her.

He opened one eye. “Are you Buddhist now?”

“If I was, I might not be considering shoving your face underwater so I can get some fucking silence,” she said through clenched teeth.

He laughed, opened his eyes, and looked at her again.

“You’re purposely driving me batshit crazy, aren’t you?” she asked. 

“Of course,” he said with a grin. “Can’t we do that kind of meditation where we sit facing each other with our legs entwined and touch each other’s chests or something?”

“Where in the hell did you see that?”

He shrugged. “A movie.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Of course.”

He climbed to his feet and she watched him warily as he made his way over to her, sat down behind her and spread his legs. He pulled her back against him and nuzzled her neck. “This is better,” he murmured.

She reached up behind her and tangled her fingers in his hair. He hummed and pressed a kiss to her cheek; she took the hint and turned her head so he could kiss her.

The past few days since that epic day she’d kissed him for the first time since he’d brought her home, Jon had been able to kiss her quite often. He'd missed everything about kissing his wife, especially the sounds she made in the back of her throat that let him know she liked kissing him. He also liked how he would get a little dizzy kissing her, and that when they parted both of them were slightly out of breath. Sansa's skin would be flushed a bit too and that drove him to distraction. All he wanted to do was find out how far that flush went. With his lips. 

_She loves me_ , he would think each and every time. _And she wants me._

Though she made no move to further their new-old relationship with other intimacies, she did at least allow him to hold her in his arms at night. Lately, they’d been doing a lot of reminiscing about their past as they lay there in the dark together. Always they would be touching. His hand would idly glide up and down her arm or back, run through her hair, and he'd press her tighter against him if she ended up moving too far away from him. And she would touch him too. A hand through his hair, on his arm, sometimes she even pulled at the hair on his beard lightly when he would tease her. It made them both laugh when she did it. 

He looked forward to their nights together. During the day she was on guard with everyone around them, and he had to admit he felt a bit on guard himself lately with his men. Specifically with Tormund and Arya. Tormund did what he was asked, which was his job, and Arya thus far had remained scarce. This troubled Jon. He didn't like the rift between them for one, but he also didn't like Arya's treatment of Sansa. There was so much anger emanating from her when she did come around that Jon just wanted to keep Arya and Sansa as separate as possible. So, yes, at night in their bedroom when it was just the two of them, their guards were down. That was a definite step in the right direction for them considering how much on guard they'd both been since Jon had brought Sansa home. She was trying, just as she'd said she would. 

When she'd fall asleep, Jon's mind would drift as he watched her sleep. He would think about leaving the business. He still didn’t know what he thought about it. Mostly, he imagined being somewhere warm with a beach so Sansa could swim and he could fish. He’d never fished before and he kind of wanted to try it.

He imagined him and Sansa making love under the stars, walking hand-in-hand when they went places. Basically, what he fantasized about was a movie montage. It wasn’t reality. The logistics and planning that would have to go into doing such a thing overwhelmed him. The fear he had that they’d be found and then killed scared him. Could he alone keep Sansa safe? Could he alone keep them _both_ safe?

Then he would think about how he could make life more comfortable for Sansa without having to leave the business, and he came up empty. He thought about having children and wondered how they could possibly raise a kid in this environment. And how could he keep Sansa happy when he knew that she wanted to one day be a Mom? And honestly, he wanted to be a Dad. When he thought of creating a little him and Sansa, he thought of how he didn’t want to have his child part of this life at all. To end up like Olly? To end up like Myrcella?

To end up like Robb?

No.

He wondered what he would do if he left the business. It was too late for him to become a librarian, so that was out. So, what sorts of skills set did he have that would look good on a resume? Shit, he didn’t even have a resume. Somehow he didn’t think putting down “Mob Boss” would get him very far. Neither would “I once cut a man’s hand off without getting any blood on my suit.”

Their kiss ended, and Sansa looked up at him now, and studied him thoughtfully.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. “You have the oddest grin on your face.”

He smirked. “I was thinking about resumes and what mine would look like. 'Mob Boss' and ‘I once cut off a man’s hand without getting blood on my suit’ -- how do you think that would translate on a resume?”

She pursed her lips together and twisted them to the side. “Experience with management and supervising others and…and neat.”

Jon laughed. “I don’t think ‘neat’ is supposed to go on a resume.”

“It’s not. And they might think you’re just calling yourself neat, like, ya know, neat-o or something.”

“Neat-o? The 80’s called, Sansa, they want their phrases back.”

She elbowed him in the stomach lightly and he laughed. “So,” she said, “Let’s change ‘neat’ to… meticulous, organized, and pays close attention to detail. I’m guessing you have to be all those things in order to not get any blood on your suit.” She looked at him expectantly. “Am I to guess that you’re thinking about possible jobs you could do if you were to, say, leave the business?”

“I told you I’d think about it.”

“But you haven’t mentioned you’d been thinking about it. What do you think about it?”

“I don’t know, that’s the problem. I’ve never allowed myself to think of anything beyond this. I never considered leaving an option.”

“Don’t get so hung up on the logistics of it.”

“How can I not? The logistics include how to keep us alive and from being found. I have to think about all of that. I can’t just imagine a whole new life without first thinking of how to get us there.”

“I can help with the getting away. As we have established, I am good at that part.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you. I can tell you that right now.”

“Where are you going?”

Both Jon and Sansa looked up to find Arya standing there, her head cocked to the side.

Sansa wondered how much she heard. It was a bit telling that Jon was probably thinking the same thing based on how his arms tightened around her. 

"To dinner," Jon said. "Tonight."

Arya's expression remained neutral, which was actually pretty chilling in Sansa's opinion. But then, her sister could be pretty chilling period. She didn't remember thinking so as much before as she did now. Sansa wondered if it was because the time away had softened Arya in her mind, or if Arya just had more to hold against her now. After all, her sister had made a play for Jon and been rebuffed. And then it had only been an idea in Jon's mind that Sansa was alive. 

Sansa was not so cold-hearted towards her sister not to understand how that must hurt. If she was a better person she might try to talk to Arya about it. Or if they had the kind of relationship in which Sansa could even show her kindness without getting snapped at. It was best, as Jon had advised, to keep her distance. But she was beginning to wonder how long that was going to work for. She went back and forth on whether or not she thought Arya might actually harm her. Arya certainly had reason to want to - even if it was out of sheer jealousy. 

"Tormund wants to know when to set up a meeting time to make final plans for the big Lannister ambush on our shipments," Arya said flatly. Her gaze didn't even flicker to Sansa. 

"Tomorrow afternoon, say noon?" Jon replied. 

Arya nodded and trudged off without a word. 

"Well, I might not be dead, but I am dead to her at least," Sansa muttered. 

"I keep hoping she'll come around," Jon said on a sigh. 

"I stopped hoping that a long time ago. So, dinner?"

Jon chuckled. "You and your stomach."

"Is it safe to take me out?"

"Yes. Sandor and Grenn will be with us. As much as I'd like to lock us both away in a tower, we can't do that."

Sansa sighed. "Especially since I'd probably throw you out of it."

Jon attacked her with tickles to her sides until she was across his lap and a puddle in his arms. He kissed her until she was breathless, and then pressed his forehead to hers. "I love you," he murmured. 

In answer, she kissed him again. 

xxxxxxxx

Jon told Sansa to meet him outside on the porch at 7 so he could "pick her up" for their "date". Sansa wasn't going to lie; she was rather excited to see what he had planned for her. Ever since that awful moment in the grocery store when she thought Jaime Lannister was going to kill them both, she found herself much more open to reconciliation. In fact, she'd found herself in a rather odd position: not wanting to leave Jon, but wanting to leave the mob life. She kept wondering what she would do if Jon decided to stay and not leave. Would she then stay, too? Somehow she was infused with this idea that if she stayed she could protect him. If she left, he would die. 

She'd never been in the position she'd been in at the grocery store. She'd been afraid for Jon before, of course she had been, but having the danger so close and imminent like that, seeing Jaime Lannister reach into his suit coat pocket...fear gripped her all over again when she thought of it. Brushing up against that danger in such a way had reawakened her protectiveness of Jon. And now, imbued with the idea that she could possibly get him out of it altogether...God, she hoped he wanted that. She didn't want to push him, knowing how loyal he was to the memory of her father and Robb, but at the same time she wanted to start plans in motion before anything happened. In the mob life, it wasn't too quiet and peaceful for long. 

"Well, well. Mrs. Snow cleans up nice now, doesn't she?"

Sansa grinned as she looked over at Sandor who was sitting at the end of the porch in an Adirondack chair. 

"Oh, this old thing?" she said with a laugh and did a little twirl to get the full effect of the varying shades of blue, purple, and pink at the top of the skirt. It went down to the tip of her toes and had a bit of an ombre effect with the colors cascading into cream at the bottom. There was a black belt built into the dress at the bodice which was black, and the bodice was velvet, strapless, and low-cut. 

“Yup. Very old. When did you get again?” he asked with a grin. 

“Two hours ago,” she said. “I’m already over it.”

“You look beautiful, Sansa.”

She smiled as she made her way down to where he was seated. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“I’m no sir,” he said, and they shared a smile. The first time Sandor had guarded Sansa she’d called him sir and he’d told her the same thing then – though not as kindly. 

“Some day I would like to see you in something other than jeans a t-shirt,” she told him with a wag of her finger. 

“I’ve been known to wear a suit before,” he said, “For weddings and funerals. Though I can’t say I’ve had occasion for many weddings. Just yours, actually.”

“You could still get married, you know, she said lightly. 

“I don’t think so, Little Bird,” he said softly as he looked up at her. “Worried about your old dog?”

“You’re not old, and you’re not a dog.”

“Then you must be blind.” He pointed to something beyond her. “Take a gander, Little Bird.”

Sansa turned and there was Jon, coming up the porch steps dressed in a blue suit with a white crisp shirt and a tie that Sansa had memories of wearing around her neck once during a romp in the bedroom. In his hand he held a bouquet of colorful tulips. He smiled as he came towards her and Sansa put her hands over her mouth. It was just like their first date. Except then she’d been wearing a sun dress, he’d been wearing jeans and a shirt he’d borrowed from Robb, and the flowers had been daisies. 

His eyes scanned the length of her and his smile fell. “You take my breath away.” He thrust the flowers forward, looking almost as nervous as their first date. She took the flowers and brought them to her nose immediately. “Jon, they’re so beautiful. I love them.”

“I love you,” he said, almost as though he couldn’t stop himself. 

She smiled at him. “Let me put these in water before we go,” she said and started for the door. 

Just then, Grenn came out and Jon snapped his fingers at him. “Grenn, put these in water and then get to the car,” Jon said. “Sandor.”

“On my way,” Sandor said and got up. 

Sansa passed off the bouquet to Grenn. “Do you know where the vases are, Grenn?” Sansa asked him. 

“Where you left them,” Grenn said with a smile. “I got it, Sansa.”

“Thank you, Grenn,” Sansa said. 

“This is why they like you more than me,” Jon said and held out his hand to her while Sandor passed by them, heading to the car. 

“You snapped your fingers at him like an errand boy,” Sansa admonished and took his proffered hand. "And I think it's only Sandor, Grenn, and Sam who like me now."

Jon pulled her into him and she laughed as she stumbled a bit, falling into him, which she suspected was his plan. He caught her about the waist and kissed her. “My beautiful wife,” he murmured. 

She smiled and fiddled with his tie. “My handsome husband.” She wasn’t sure why saying that made her nervous, but they did. Perhaps because it felt like giving away a little bit more of herself. 

It definitely pleased him if his next kiss was anything to go by. 

“So, are you two just gonna stand out here and make out or….?” 

Sansa giggled into Jon’s shoulder while Jon shot Grenn, who was coming out of the house, a mock glare. 

“Your chariot awaits, my lady,” Jon murmured. 

“I want to be the queen.”

“Only if I am your king.”

“I don’t know,” Sansa said with her head cocked to the side as she pushed away from him. “I’m kind of impressed with Grenn right now.”

Jon grabbed her hand and pulled her into falling into step beside him as he started for the car. “Then I’ll just have to see what I can do to become king.”

Sansa leaned up and kissed his cheek. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”


	30. Chapter 30

Jon had indeed thought of something. He’d thought of everything, or so it seemed to Sansa. He took her to the “rotating restaurant”, or at least that’s what everyone called it. It was really called High Garden, and the top of it moved ever so slightly so that by the end of your dinner, you got the whole view of the city down below. 

It was elegant and gorgeous, and utterly romantic. It reminded Sansa of how things had been before everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. Jon had been romantic when they’d dated, and romantic after they’d first married. 

Sansa couldn’t help now but be taken in by this gesture. A part of her was afraid to give in still, a part of her still held back, but this…well, she was enjoying this. The restaurant was gorgeous – all bronze and glass and candlelight. Even a dance floor. 

Their table was made up of a crisp cream tablecloth and plates that had a twining rose and gold trim. There were fresh white begonias in a little flower vase in the middle of the table along with candles on each side. 

Sansa couldn’t stop looking around, even well after their menus had been placed down and Jon had ordered them a bottle of wine. 

“Sweetling, are you going to look at the menu at all?” Jon teased her. 

“Did you just feel the floor move?” she asked. “I think I just felt the floor move.”

He chuckled. “No, I didn’t. You’re not supposed to actually feel it.”

She shrugged. “I know, but I want to.” She grabbed the menu and opened it. She even liked the way the menu looked: thick just-a-smidge-off-white paper and gold lettering. “What are you thinking of getting?” 

“Steak.”

“Of course.”

He nudged her foot under the table. “What is that supposed to mean?”

She smirked over the sleek black menu. “You always get steak. Or at least you always used to.”

He shrugged. “I’m a man of simple tastes.”

“You weren’t always. You used to be a bit more adventurous.”

“I think any more adventure in my life might kill me at this point,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“Well, how about we change it up?”

He looked at her warily. “What did you have in mind?”

“I order for you and you order for me.”

He seemed to toss that around in his head for a bit before finally nodding in agreement. “All right. But I’m afraid I don’t know what you even like anymore. Old Sansa would have gotten scallops. New Sansa I’m not so sure about.”

She cocked her head to the side. “New Sansa?”

“Yes, New Sansa. You can’t deny you’ve changed.”

“I didn’t think you’d noticed. I mean, aside from…well, you know.”

“How could I miss it?” he asked. 

“You never really said anything.”

“Because I was jealous.”

She looked at him in surprise. “Jealous?”

“I wasn’t there for the changes,” he murmured a darted a glance down at his menu. “You changed without me.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t as though that wasn’t true. She didn’t want to apologize again either. She already had. 

“I changed too,” he continued after a beat. “Just not for the better.”

“I think you have potential to get there. To be the man you want to be.”

“It’s easier to remember who that is with you here.”

“I can’t always be your compass. That’s a kind of co-dependency I’m not entirely comfortable with.”

He looked back down at the menu and Sansa wondered if this was one of those moments where she’d said something Jon didn’t want to hear or acknowledge. But then he said, “You got me thinking when you apologized to me for Ned having brought me into the business.”

“Oh?”

He looked at her. “You made me think about who I was before then. And who I became after.”

“And?”

“I’ve no idea who I am. I’m not sure I ever did. Before I was given direction I was just trying to survive. My Mum, as you know, wasn’t really there for me. She was too concerned with her own life to bother with me. I rather crimped her style.”

Sansa did know that. She remembered how Jon ate up any kind of parental affection Ned and Catelyn bestowed upon him. How he was so hungry to be accepted and loved. 

“And then Ned and Robb took me in…” He sighed. “I felt like I had a purpose. And that I’d gained a family. It was all I’d wanted.” He smiled. “Then, of course, there was you.” He sighed. “But I didn’t know who I was then. I didn’t really know who I was after either. I know who I am as the boss and as your husband. When we’re free of the stress of the business, I feel like I’m closer to knowing who I am when I’m with you. You were always good about asking me what I liked. What I wanted to do. You’d occasionally point something out to me about my personality that I wasn’t even aware of and I would think on it for days wondering if that was me…”

“That makes me sad,” Sansa said softly. 

“What was it like for you to be away from here? Did you learn new things about yourself? I always imagined that you already knew who you were.” 

“Well, it was different…I mean, I had to assume a new identity. That didn’t mean that the core of me changed, but my appearance and name changed and that can’t help but affect a person. It was sort of like…what would Alayne do? What would Alayne like? Being in a completely different country changes you too. It’s a whole different culture. I soaked up as much of it as I could, and in the process, I did learn new things about myself. What I liked, what I didn’t like. Who I wanted to be while I was there. It turned out that not a lot of who I am as Sansa Snow changed. I just grew more…confident.”

“I noticed.”

The waiter came over then and Jon apologized and asked him to give them a few more minutes. When the waiter departed, Jon nodded to Sansa. “All right, sweetling. You pick for me and I’ll pick for you.”

“No,” Sansa said. “I’ve changed my mind. I want you to get what you want. I’ve made you try meditation and yoga—”

“The yoga was my favorite.”

“Yeah, because you were ogling my ass the entire time.”

“I told you I’m a simple man with simple tastes.”

“You’re not simple, Jon. That’s the thing. You think you are, but you’re not. If you were simple you wouldn’t feel so disengaged from your own life. You’re restless. You’re not happy. It’s not just me you want, but something of your own. Your own identity. Get what you want, but just try something other than steak if something else strikes your fancy but you’re just a little hesitant to try it. That’s all I’m going to say. You’re not Mob Boss Jon right now. You’re Jon Snow. What does Jon Snow want?”

“Well, brace yourself,” he said. “I think he wants chicken.”

Sansa smiled and laughed a little. “Chicken it is then.”

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Jon thought Sansa might leap out of her seat when a live band came out to play at the small stage in front of the dance floor. Her eyes went wide with excitement and she squirmed in her seat. Sansa had always enjoyed things like this, and while he could take them or leave them, he liked making her happy. 

Before they ordered dessert, Jon got up from his seat and held out his hand to his wife. “May I have this dance?”

She beamed at him and nodded, slipping her hand into his. 

Jon wasn’t much of a dancer, and any steps he did know, it was Sansa who had taught him. He was happy to just hold her in his arms and step from side-to-side, which is more or less what they ended up doing. With her chin resting on his shoulder and one arm around him, Jon felt surrounded by her. He shut his eyes and breathed her in, savoring this moment. 

“We should play pool,” she said suddenly. 

Jon blinked and turned his head to look at her. She moved her head back and looked at him expectantly. “Pardon?” he said. 

“You like playing pool. We should play pool.”

“Sansa—”

“I know you’re not a big fan of fancy restaurants and that you only came here because of me. So we should do something you enjoy too.”

He let out a laugh, which was really more of a sigh, and smiled admiringly at her. “You know what I enjoy? You loving me enough to want me to be doing the things I enjoy.”

“I want you to be happy.”

“In this moment, I am. I’m not thinking about what I’d rather be doing. I’m not thinking of the Lannisters, of the business – I’m out with my wife and I’m holding her in my arms. I’m enjoying that.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly and looked at him directly in the eye. “For tonight.”

With a soft smile, he leaned in and brushed a kiss across her lips. “It’s not over yet,” he said. “But you’re welcome.”

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

When Sansa and Jon returned home, Sansa admittedly a bit tipsy from the wine she’d imbibed, she wondered if Jon felt the tension in the air. It wasn’t unpleasant, not completely anyway. Though if words could hang like a sign above them it would say: will they or won’t they?

It was a good question, and one Sansa didn’t have an answer to. She could not deny that she was attracted to her husband. She always had been. Nor could she deny that the past few days had been rather nice. 

And while she loved Jon and worried about him, she was afraid that if they made love she would be promising him something that she wasn’t yet fully sure about. It wasn’t easy, this feeling. She felt like she was walking a tightrope, caught between wanting to protect him and wanting to flee this life before she was in too deep again. She wanted to push Jon to make a decision on whether or not he would leave the business, but she also knew she couldn’t push him and that, for him, the decision wasn’t an easy one to make. For her it was a no-brainer – why would anyone choose to stay if they could leave, but he was also the boss. And that came with a whole mess of strings. Not to mention the work it would take to extricate the big boss from the whole organization. 

They would have a lot to plan, but Sansa was of the “where there’s a will there’s a way” mentality. She just wasn’t sure Jon was of that same mind. And while a rather large part of her wanted to push him to make the decision she wanted him to make, she also knew that she could not do that. It would go against what she was trying to help Jon do: find out who he was and what he wanted. She couldn’t make decisions for him, even if she really wanted to. 

Part of her thought she should have sex with him just in case things went really south. Then at least she would have some great memories to revisit. The other part of her knew that it would be that much harder for her to leave if it came down to it that she decided to. 

It was just so fucking _hard_. She wanted him, plain and simple. She loved him too. That was not so plain and not so simple. She couldn’t extricate meaning from the act of sex with Jon because without a doubt it would mean something for the both of them. She knew Jon well enough to know that. She also knew herself well enough too. 

So that was probably why after they’d returned home, she’d run right to the bathroom to change before Jon could offer to unzip her. Before he could even begin to seduce her. 

It was probably also why when she emerged from the bathroom, dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, she started to cry at the sight of Jon sitting on the bed. He was dressed in his lounge pants and a black t-shirt and he had that I’m-trying-not-to-look-wounded-but-I-am look on his face. Then when she started to cry, he looked horrified. 

“Sansa, what is it?” he asked as he got up and came over to her. She jutted out her hands to keep him from taking her in his arms and he stopped abruptly. “Sweetling?”

“Don’t! Don’t be all sweet.” She wiped at her eyes. “God, did I really just say that?”

He stared at her, looking utterly lost. 

She gestured to him. “Obviously, you felt it. Or at least thought about it. The possibility of us having sex tonight.”

He heaved a sigh and nodded, hanging his head low. “I did. Though it wasn’t my intention in taking you out. I genuinely wanted to do that.”

“I know. Which just makes it worse.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you, Jon. It’s just that….” _With so many things up in the air, with me not knowing what I’m going to do and what you’re going to do, with the possibility that I could leave, with the possibility that having sex with you might just put us back to where we were, because while the past few days have been great I cannot go back to what it was like before I left…_

Those were all the things she was thinking. All the things she wasn’t sure she could say. 

So, instead she finished with: “It’s just that I’m not ready.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s okay—”

“You looked like a kicked puppy when I came out here.”

He let out a frustrated sigh through his nose. “I won’t lie and say I don’t want you, Sansa. I want you so bad I can’t see straight. I’ve jerked off in the shower so much I’m in danger of chafing. I mean, if you want to know what I would enjoy...”

She knew she shouldn’t laugh, but she had a suspicion he kind of expected her to by the self-deprecating smile on his face. 

“I want you,” he said, serious now. “I’ll always want you. But I won’t force you.”

She sniffled and wiped her tears away with the pads of her finger. Jon reached out his hand and she took it and walked into his embrace willingly. 

“We’re further than we were,” he said softly. “That makes me happy.”

She nodded and buried her face in his neck, breathing in his clean scent. “I do love you,” she said. 

“Sansa,” he whispered and she lifted her head, knowing what he wanted. 

He kissed her passionately, gripping her shirt in his fists at her back. He nipped at her lips and then soothed them with his tongue. “I love you too. Let’s get some sleep.”

She nodded and followed him into bed. She curled into him, still upset, and still frustrated with all the conflicting feelings she had rioting inside her. Jon didn’t press her to open up, and for that she was grateful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was really pushing for at least some foreplay, but no. Sigh.


	31. Chapter 31

Sansa was sitting on the bed she shared with Jon a few days after their "date" and watched him prepare for that night. As he dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, he told her the breakdown of the plan that night. He would have men planted on one of their boats with empty crates to make it seem as if they were expecting a shipment. This was to hopefully catch the Lannisters and their men attempting to hijack it. In which case, if they did, they would be stopped. 

"And are you planning on being on that boat with those men?" she asked. 

He sighed. "Yes. As will Tormund and Arya."

"You left that bit out the first time around," she said. 

"I didn't want to worry you."

"I'm going to worry about you regardless. Keeping it from me isn't going to help. Grenn will be with you, right?" 

"No, he'll be here with you and Sandor."

She looked at him incredulously. "Jon!"

"Sansa, don't argue with me on this," he said as he sat down on the bed and pulled on one boot. "They'll both be with you tonight. I will have plenty of men with me."

"I think only one guard would suffice," she grumbled. "You need backup."

"I will be surrounded by backup," he said as he pulled on the other boot.

"This is my fault."

He furrowed his brow and looked at her. "What's your fault?"

She twisted her hands together in her lap. "I said I wanted to know what was going on."

"Would you prefer I not tell you?"

" _No_." She threw up her hands and jumped up from the bed. "That's the problem! I want to know and yet knowing is just going to make me worry all night." She looked at him hopefully. "I don't suppose I could come with you?"

"Absolutely _not_ ," he said emphatically. 

She knew that was the case, and she had a feeling that sneaking out wouldn't work at all, so there she was. Stuck. At home. Just waiting like some...some wife. 

Which she was, a wife and all, but she hated this. Hated it. She thought maybe she could learn to be more useful like Arya, and then she thought that would be going against everything she wanted for herself, for Jon, for them...

She wanted him away from it all is what she wanted. 

"I don't like this," she whispered. 

"I know," he said as he stood and came over to her. He took her hands that she was currently wringing, and squeezed them. "I'm not worried, sweetling. I'm going to be fine."

She looked up at him and jutted her chin out. "Liar. You are worried."

He shrugged a shoulder. "A little."

She accepted that for now. How could he not worry? How could he think that every time he would come out on top? Weren't there so many chances for that? Didn't your luck run out at some point? 

"I need you to be strong for me," he said. 

"I am strong," she snapped. "I am allowed to worry, Jon. Don't make me sound like I'm some kind of harpy."

He held up a hand in surrender. "You're not."

She folded her arms across her chest. "If you die I'm never speaking to you again."

He laughed softly as he unfolded her arms drew her into his arms. "I'll just haunt you until you do."

"Don't joke about being a ghost!"

"I'm sorry," he said, and then kissed her soundly. "I love you, sweet girl."

She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him fiercely and passionately, putting into the kiss what she still had trouble expressing with her words. 

Jon moaned and gripped her waist. She could feel him hardening against her. "Are you attempting to seduce me into staying?" Jon rasped when he broke the kiss. 

"Maybe," she panted. 

He groaned. "Vixen."

A loud knock came at the door followed by Arya's voice laced with impatience. "You coming or what?" 

"I'd like to be," Jon muttered and Sansa giggled. He kissed her again. "To be continued."

She nodded. "Just be careful."

"You too."

She rolled her eyes. "The only danger I'm in is losing a few bucks when Grenn, Sandor, and I play poker."

He kissed her one last time, whispered he loved her, and then left. 

And Sansa sat down on the bed and worried. 

xxxxxxx

"Where'd you fly off to, Little Bird?"

Sansa snapped back to attention at the sound of Sandor's voice and looked at him. "What?"

It was just about dark now and they were sitting down at the beach together, a few of those Tiki lamps lit up to shed some light. Grenn was on the porch playing with his phone. They'd had dinner - pizza - after the other men had left, and Sandor and Grenn had attempted to teach her how to play poker. 

It wasn't meant to be. 

She couldn't keep the rules in her head, too preoccupied with thinking about Jon getting shot and killed on a boat. 

"I'm...wishing I was with Jon," she said with a sigh and brushed her hands together to get the sand off them. She'd been absently picking up handfuls of it and letting it cascade through her fingers. 

"I figured as much," Sandor murmured. "I know this sucks for you, Little Bird."

"I'm not sure which was worse - being away and wondering, or being here and...wondering."

"You won't have to wonder for long if something happens," Sandor said bluntly. "We'll know soon enough I wager."

"I want him to leave, Sandor. I asked him to."

Sandor was quiet for a while as though turning that around in his mind. "And?" he finally said. 

"He's still thinking about it, which really just makes me nervous because how much time do you need?"

"When you're in as deep as he is? A long time. Sansa, it's a lot to think about. To plan. It's not like just quitting a regular job. He's got several people who need his direction, who would be angry if he up and left the same way..."

"The same way I did?" she supplied. 

"Yes."

"Selfishly I keep thinking if he loves me as much as he says he does he wouldn't have to think about it." She rubbed her forehead. "I know that's not reality, though."

"Give him time."

Sansa looked over at him. "Would you go? I mean...I don't know if you could go exactly with us if we did, but...would you?"

"And where would you propose I go? And what would you propose I do? I don't imagine Jon would want me taggin' along with you." 

She frowned. "You're mad."

He sighed and hung his head, shook it. "No, I'm not mad. I'm a lot of other things."

"Like what?"

"Forget it, Little Bird."

"Tell me, Sandor. I'm your friend."

"Yes, I know," he said and climbed to his feet. "But a man is allowed some secrets. You want a beer?"

She sighed and nodded. "Sure."

He got up and started for the house when Sansa heard a whistle through the air. Something hit the sand near her foot and she jerked back. A cold dread settled over her. Had she just been shot at? "Sandor—"

"Sansa, get up and run, now!" Sandor shouted. "Grenn! Shooter in the woods!"

Sansa scrambled to her feet, feeling as though she was in one of those dreams where she couldn't quite get up after having fallen down. She started to run, zigzag, just as her father had taught her and Arya to do long ago. The shooter had a harder time getting a target that wasn't going in a straight line. 

But she got shot anyway. In her forearm. She cried out and heard her father's voice in her head: _You don't stop. You keep moving._

It burned like a motherfucker, and she could feel blood trickling down her finger. A sob welled up in her throat. _They were in danger. She could die. Sandor could die. Grenn could die._

She looked over her shoulder, she couldn't help it. And what she saw stopped her in her tracks. 

Sandor. On the ground. From the soft glow of the porch light, she could see that he was bleeding from his chest. A choked cry ripped from her throat and she faltered and fell. Grenn was there in an instant, helping her to her feet and dragging her before she could even right herself toward the house. He shoved her inside and yelled at her to get into the panic room. 

She nodded, her breathing erratic as fear and terror threatened to consume her. She forced herself to move, to run to the rec room and get to the panic room her father had set up for them long ago. The door to the panic room was actually the place where the pool sticks were placed. The keypad to enter the code for it was under a piece of carpet that easily flapped back - if you knew where to look for it. She remembered the code to get inside and remembered the code once inside to secure it. 

Sansa hesitated though once she'd peeled back the carpet and was faced with the glowing green of the keypad underneath white buttons. Sandor. Grenn. She wanted to help them. What if Sandor was...no. No. Sandor was just hurt. That was all. Just hurt. Like her. He wasn't dead, he couldn't be dead. Maybe he was just playing opossum. 

Her hand shook as she reached out to punch in the code. Blood coated her hand. Tears blurred her eyes. She heard a thud coming from somewhere upstairs and she punched in the numbers quickly with her non-bloody hand and missed one. She tried again and heard the front door slam open. Fear gripped her and she entered the number again and heard the door give way. She pulled back the heavy wood and a loose pool stick clattered to the floor and caused her to jump. She lunged inside and started to pull the door shut when a bloody hand jutted inside. 

Instinct told her to hit that hand and get it away from her and so she did, with all her might. 

"Sansa! It's me!"

Sansa stopped and pushed the door open wider. "Grenn!"

Grenn lunged inside and pushed the door shut. He entered the code quickly and then flicked on a light. Sansa stared at him. He'd been shot in the shoulder and the leg. Blood trailed down his pale arm. He looked like he'd swiped at his forehead for there was a smear of it on his forehead near his mop of red hair. 

"Whoever it is might be gone. I think I might have shot him though I'm not sure," Grenn said. "I ran out in the woods and thought I saw him. I shot at him, but I don't know..." He looked around the room. Ned had made it like a studio apartment. It had everything one could ever need if they were stuck for days: a couch that pulled out, a twin bed, a small kitchenette, a couple chairs, blankets, a bathroom, a few books, and a landline phone. 

Grenn went to the phone and Sansa stood there, shivering. It wasn’t even cold. She was almost certain she wasn’t cold, and yet she was shivering. 

“Sandor,” she croaked. “What happened to Sandor, Grenn?”

Grenn held the phone receiver in his hand and his expression crumpled into sadness. “I’m sorry, Sansa.”

Tears leaked from her eyes. All she could see was Sandor lying on the beach on his back, not moving. He’d died protecting her just as he’d sworn to do. 

She heard Grenn talking as though from a great distance as she stood there feeling utterly lost. Her thoughts were cloudy. 

_Sandor was dead. Sandor was dead. Sandor was dead._

“Sansa!” Grenn shouted, startling her. 

She blinked at him. He stood with the receiver held out, his brows knit together as he looked at her as though trying to piece together a puzzle. 

“It’s Jon,” he said. “He wants to talk to you.”

Sansa shuffled forward. She felt as though she was outside her body; it felt as though she were moving underwater. She took the receiver and put it to her ear. “Jon?”

 _“Sweetling,”_ Jon breathed. He sounded very upset; he also sounded as though he was running. “ _Where are you hurt, baby?”_

His words weren’t making sense to her. She furrowed her brow. “Jon, there’s been an incident.”

_“I know, sweetling, I know. Tell me where you’re hurt.”_

“My arm. There’s…blood. Grenn is hurt too. In his shoulder and leg. And Sandor is…” She started to cry in earnest now. Jon was talking to her but she couldn’t understand. She dropped the phone and then thunked down hard on the floor. The movement jarred her arm and she cried out. 

She could hear Jon shouting through the phone, and hear Grenn talking, presumably to Jon. But Sansa no longer heard anything at all.


	32. Chapter 32

Jon remembered this feeling all too well. This crawl-out-of-your-skin, I’m-about-to-lose-my-ever-loving-mind feeling. He’d felt it when Sansa had faked her death. That day, being unable to reach her, and then motoring out to her boat only to find it void of her presence. Then the suicide note that had been left for him. Not having a body. Not having her. 

He hadn’t been able to bear it. He wasn’t doing any better now knowing that Sansa was hurt and Sandor was dead. Logically, he knew that her wound wasn’t fatal. He also knew that she was safe inside the panic room with Grenn. 

Unless, of course, this had been an inside job and the one after her knew the code to the room.

Something was off. Very off. He had been certain tonight that they would have been able to catch the Lannister men attempting to hijack their dummy shipment. Instead, there had been nothing. No attempt at all. Just crickets. Had someone tipped them off that tonight was a trap? 

No matter what though, they knew that Jon and most of his men were not at the house. They knew Sansa would not be with him, and that she would have guards with her. Sansa had been the target, Jon knew that without a doubt. He kept hearing Cersei in his head when she said in the grocery store that “now wasn’t the time”. Then that smirk she’d given when he’d asked what she meant. 

However, they had just found out that day that Sansa was alive and returned to him. They couldn’t have had something in the works already. Unless they’d had, but it had been for him. Now with Sansa alive, they could have just changed their plans. Or, they had known she was alive prior to that meetup in the grocery store, and Cersei and Jaime’s reactions had been for show. 

There were so many possibilities, and all of them were running around in Jon’s head as Tormund drove them home. His gut was screaming at him, telling him that something was off about all of this. This was not a normal attack by the Lannisters. There was something else to it, something more. 

His eyes narrowed on the back of Tormund’s head. Perhaps he felt that way because of the sudden closeness he’d noticed between Tormund and Arya. The way they hated that Sansa was back. The way Arya either taunted her sister or ignored her existence. Did Tormund have the same loathing for Sansa that Arya did? Would they have planned something together?

Both of them were with him tonight, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t hired someone. There were known assassins in the area that would do it for a fee. 

“Can you go any faster?” Jon snapped to Tormund. 

“If I go above the speed limit and we get stopped we’ll just be held up getting to the house,” Tormund replied calmly. 

Jon pulled out his gun, undid the safety, and pointed it to the back of his head. “Drive fucking faster,” he said through clenched teeth. “Now.”

“Jon!” Arya exclaimed, sitting up straighter beside him. 

Jon pointed his gun at her. “Is there a problem?”

Arya’s eyes went wide. Hurt and fear filled them and she slouched back onto the seat. “No.”

Tormund pressed on the gas. 

Jon rested the gun on his lap, holding it. Ready for anything. 

“Jon,” Yoren said from the very back. “She’s okay.”

Jon didn’t answer him. Until he knew who had done this to Sansa, everyone was a suspect. Even those he had once trusted. 

xxxxxxx

“Do you think they’re gone?” Sansa asked Grenn after he’d gotten off the phone with Jon. “Or do you think they’re still out there waiting for Jon and everyone else to arrive?” 

“I think they’re gone. Especially if I managed to wound him.”

“Or her.”

Grenn nodded. “Or her. My best guess? It was just the one. Maybe two, but I’m placing my bets on the one. They’d be stupid to hang around waiting for Jon and everyone else.”

Sansa nodded as she made her way to the bathroom area and rummaged in one of the cupboards for towels. She was still shivering, and needed to do something to focus her mind. “We need to put pressure on the wounds,” she murmured. Tears blinded her vision as she thought of Sandor outside all alone. 

_It’s just his body_ , she thought. _Not him._

A sob escaped her and she hunched over and let it roll through her. 

“Sansa?” Grenn asked. “Are you okay?”

“Okay? No, Grenn, I’m not okay. I was shot at, you were shot at, and Sandor is dead. I’m the very opposite of okay!”

Having finally found the goddamn towels, she yanked them out with the arm that was not currently throbbing with pain and chucked a couple at Grenn. He picked them up and sat down on the floor, pressing one against his shoulder and the other on his leg. 

Sansa grabbed another for herself and wrapped it around her arm, wincing the entire time. “Motherfucker!” she shouted. 

“Tell me about it,” Grenn muttered. 

Sansa sat down next to Grenn. “Thank you, by the way, for protecting me. I’m sorry I yelled at you just now—”

“Don’t,” Grenn said, holding up a hand. “Sansa, this is a shit situation. What just happened sucked complete donkey balls. Sandor is…” he shook his head. “You’re allowed to yell and be upset.”

Sansa nodded, shivering, and trying not to cry yet again. “Thank you.”

The sound of the door opening caused them both to jump and Grenn reached for his gun while Sansa scrambled to her feet and ran to hide behind the couch. 

But then she heard Jon asking for her and she called out, “I’m here!” as she stood. 

Jon rushed over to her and she started to cry _yet again._

“Sweetling,” Jon murmured and pulled her into his arms, mindful, thankfully, of her injury. He put one hand at the back of her head and the other around her waist, clutching her to him. “Oh, God, sweetling.” He pressed fervent kisses to the side of her face, his arm like a band around her. “You’re shaking,” he said and frowned as he pulled back to look at her. “You’re going into shock. We need to get your wound taken care of.”

“Did anything happen tonight with you?” she asked. 

“Nothing,” he said, his lips a firm line. He was thinking something, she could see it. But then she jerked out of his arms and started for the door. 

“Sansa!” Jon exclaimed and grabbed her hand. 

“I need to see Sandor,” she said, looking back at him. 

“He’s being taken away now, Sansa,” Jon said gently as he attempted to draw her back to him. 

“What do you mean taken away? Where?”

“Edd thought he felt a heartbeat—Sansa!”

Sansa ran from him, out the door, up the stairs, and then through the kitchen and out the door. There was an ambulance in the driveway, and Sansa recognized the EMT’s immediately as people who worked for Jon. 

She rushed over to where Sandor was on a stretcher being lifted into the ambulance. 

“Sansa, you should go back inside,” Yoren told her. “The doctor is on the way to look at your wound.”

“I don’t want Sandor to be alone,” Sansa told him as she stood at the mouth of the ambulance. “Can’t he do whatever he needs to do while I’m with Sandor?”

“No, honey, I’m sorry, but Sandor needs to get into surgery,” Yoren told her. 

Right. Of course. She knew that. “Can I just say something to him?”

Yoren nodded. “Of course.”

With some help, Sansa managed to get up in the back of the ambulance and leaned over Sandor. He had an oxygen mask over his face and she could see it clouding up with his breath very faintly. Sansa gripped his limp calloused hand in hers as tears streamed down her face. “Please live, Sandor. Please. I need you to live. _I need you._ Please come back to me.” She then bent over and kissed his forehead. 

She stepped away from him, wishing she could go with him. “Is someone going to go with him?” she asked Yoren, and now Jon who was standing next to him. 

“Yes, sweetheart, someone is going to go with him” Jon said and held up his hand to her. 

“I don’t want him to be alone,” she said and wiped at the tears that fell. “He shouldn’t be alone, Jon.”

“He won’t be, love. Come on down now.”

She took his hand and he helped her ease down to the ground. He then wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I need you to get cleaned up now, okay?”

She nodded and allowed him to lead her to the house. 

xxxxxxxxx

Jon sent some men out in the woods to investigate and discover anything they could while he stayed with Sansa as she was cleaned up and stitched up. Thankfully, it was a graze and hadn't actually gone through her. 

She had grown quiet, appearing as though she wasn’t even really in the room with him anymore aside from the pained look on her face while the doctor stitched her up. 

He listened to what the doctor said about taking care of her wound and cleaning it, knowing that Sansa had not heard a word of it. Her mind was elsewhere, no doubt with Sandor. 

And, as much as he told himself he had absolutely no right to be jealous at all considering what had happened that night, he was loathe to admit that a part of him was. 

After she was done, Jon led her to their bathroom to draw her a bath. She sat down on the toilet and watched him start the water. He left to grab some plastic bags and duct tape to keep her bandages dry, and when he returned, he knelt down before her and started wrapping the plastic around the area as delicately as possible. 

When he was done he looked up at her and attempted to smile. 

Sansa put the hand of her uninjured arm on his shoulder and said, “I can’t stay here anymore.”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These two... *smh*

Jon nodded slowly, thoughtfully – definitely not a nod of consent, but one of recognition that he’d heard her. He was attempting to remain calm whilst thinking about how he’d reply to this without causing an argument. It was not the best time to have him handle one fear (her leaving him) while in the middle of dealing with another (her being shot at).

 _She’s in shock still. She’s upset. She’s had a horrific night,_ he told himself. 

“And where are you going to go?” he asked. “Wales,” she replied. “I want to go back to Wales. I want to be with my friends.”

Jon nodded slowly again, cognizant of the fact that she was not thinking clearly. If she was, she wouldn’t have mentioned Wales. She knew she couldn’t go back there since too many people knew where she’d been, not to mention that if tonight was an inside job…well, they’d waste no time in tracking her down and finishing off what they’d started tonight. He knew she knew all of this, and he knew that when someone was scared they reached for the thing that made them feel safe. It hurt that that wasn’t him, but could he really expect at this point that it would be? He was struggling with feeling as though he’d failed her, and now by wanting to leave she was basically telling him that he had. 

And when Jon was angry and hurt, he lashed out in anger. He was trying very hard not to do that right now because it wasn’t her he was upset with. He was upset about this whole goddamn situation. 

“You can’t go to Wales, Sansa,” he said calmly as he finished taping up the plastic bag around her bandage. 

“Well I can’t stay here!” she exploded. “I’m not safe here!”

“And you won’t be safe if you leave either. Whoever shot at you won’t let you get very far without trying again. You’re safer here.”

“Here? _Here?!_ ” She was hysterical; he could hear it in the shrillness of her voice. “Jon, I was shot at in the backyard. Grenn was shot at. Sandor was—” Her big blue eyes welled up in tears. “I can’t stay here. I can’t live like this. I can’t have this be my life. I can’t.”

“I got it, Sansa,” he snapped. “You can’t.” He hadn’t wanted to snap at her like that, but he was on edge himself. She’d been _shot_. She could have been _killed._ To say he was rattled was an understatement. 

“Do you even fucking care?” she asked accusingly. She looked at him as though he’d betrayed her. 

Jon’s mouth dropped open. She may as well have slapped him. Did he care? Was she kidding? “How can you ask me that?” There was an edge to his voice, the hint of a warning, despite how softly he’d asked the question. 

“Because you’re trying to keep me here like some kind of sitting duck!” She got up from the toilet and stalked into the bedroom. Jon sighed, praying for patience, got up, shut off the faucet to the tub, and followed her.

She was lugging a suitcase out of the closet when he entered the bedroom. “Sansa, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” she snapped. “I’m packing.” She flipped the lid of the suitcase open and looked at him. “I’m not waiting anymore for you to make the decision to go. You clearly don’t want to go. Not even after all of this. For all that you say you love me, you seem perfectly content to just let me continue being a target.” She went over to the nightstand and opened it. “Well, I’m not going to let them get me next time. I’m going to go. I’ll hide out somewhere until I hear how Sandor is doing. If he lives through this nightmare, he and I will take off for—”

Jon stopped trying to be calm after hearing her plan to run off with Sandor. He curled his fingers around her good arm and pulled her away from grabbing her panties and bras. He pulled her close to him and growled low in her face: “What. Did you. Just. Say?”

God love her, she wasn’t afraid of him. She stood her ground instead and glared back at him, her chin raised defiantly. “Sandor cares about my safety and happiness. You don’t. He’d go away with me and keep me safe—”

“Over my dead body,” he hissed. 

“I told you I didn’t want part of this life anymore, Jon. You gave me license to tell you when I’d had enough.” She yanked her arm free just as tears fell from her eyes. “Well I’ve had enough. I tried. I did. But we were fools and it wasn’t real. Tonight was real. Being shot at, Sandor lying in the sand not moving – _that_ was real. I told you I could help you with an out but you didn’t want to take it. Either you were hoping I’d just accept things as they were and forget that I’d asked you to go, or you just prefer to be in all this…violence.” She wiped at her tears and sniffled. “Well, I’m not waiting either way anymore. I’m done.”

“You take one step out of this house and whoever is after you will find you and kill you,” Jon said, putting his hands on his hips. “You’re not going anywhere. If I have to throw you back in the goddamn panic room to keep you here I will.”

“This house has been one giant panic room since I got back here. Since you _dragged_ me back here!” she shouted at him. “I’m not your wife; I’m your hostage.”

“Sansa, don’t do that. Don’t discount all the progress we’ve made.” He was aware that he sounded a bit desperate in that moment. 

“It wasn’t real,” she muttered and threw a wad of panties and bras in the suitcase. 

In a burst of anger and, he was loathe to admit it, fear, he grabbed the suitcase off the bed and flung it across the room. It hit the wall with some force and some of her underthings scattered across the floor. 

“It _was_ real!” he exclaimed in his frustration. “Tonight does not make it any less real. If anything, it’s something to fight for.”

“There won’t be anything to fight for if one of us ends up dead,” she said flatly. Her bottom lip trembled. “I don’t want to die. And I can’t stay here and wait for death to come for you.” She wiped at more tears in frustration. “It was hard in Wales not knowing what could befall you, checking obituaries every week to see if your name was on them, but this is harder. I can’t watch it. I’ll end up like my mother before long.”

“No, you won’t.”

“You never had any intention of giving me a real choice, did you?”

Jon clenched his jaw. “I thought I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.”

“Liar.”

He cocked his head to the side. “And you? Were you making plans with Sandor behind my back this entire time? If and when you decided to leave, if he was game you’d go with him?”

“No, it wasn’t like that at all.”

“Then _what_ was it like, Sansa?”

“He offered to help me go in the event you wouldn’t let me leave.” She pointed at him. “I knew you weren’t being honest with me. I knew when it came down to it and I decided to go, you wouldn’t let me. Is that what you really want, Jon? For me to stay under duress?”

“What I’d like is for you to be honest with me.”

“Just as you giving me the illusion of a choice to leave if I wanted to was honest?”

She had him there. “You think it would be easy for me? To just let you go? You’re my _wife_ , Sansa. Till death do us part, do you remember that?”

She held up her injured arm. “Well, give it a few and that may just be a reality.”

“Don’t. Don’t joke about it.”

“I’m _not_. I want to _leave_ it.”

“And go where? You can’t go to Wales, you know that. We’ve talked about that. You knew before I even said it that you can’t go back there. You think you’re going to just leave here tonight and go to a hotel? Do you think you’ll be fucking safe in a goddamn hotel when someone is after you? Think about it, Sansa: whoever it is waited until I was gone to go after you. That means you were the target. You leave here and you’re a sitting duck. You know this; you’re just not thinking clearly right now—”

“Can you really blame me?!” she asked and threw up her hands in exasperation. She sat down on the bed and started to cry in earnest. “I had to watch you leave tonight knowing you could be in danger, then I’m fucking _shot_ , Sandor could _die_ , Grenn was shot _twice_ – and you don’t care!”

He was going to punch a fucking wall if she said that he didn’t care one more time. Instead, he attempted to count to ten – which didn’t work – and came over to kneel in front of her. “Look at me,” he demanded gruffly. 

She looked at him. “I can’t stop crying! I hate this!”

Jon got up, went to the bathroom and grabbed the box of tissues on the counter and came back. He knelt again before her and handed her the tissues. She took them and pulled out a wad and began wiping at her eyes and blowing her nose. 

She was a mess. Scared, injured, angry – Jon’s heart ached. He’d failed her. He hadn’t kept her safe enough. And in this line of business were they ever truly safe? Save for locking her up in that panic room, would Sansa ever be truly safe? Would he? No. 

“I’ll go with you,” he blurted out.

She looked at him. “What?”

“I’ll go with you. You want to leave here for good, for forever, then that’s what we’ll do.”

She stopped wiping away her tears and just looked at him, her brows pinched together. “Do you mean that?”

Did he? He had no plan, no idea how right now….

But he couldn’t risk something like this happening again. He couldn’t lock her away. _He couldn’t keep her safe enough._ He couldn’t live with this fear. Couldn’t live with her being hurt again. He nodded. “I mean it.”

“Truly?”

He heard the doubt in her voice. “Truly. I – I don’t know how, I don’t know when – it will take some planning and whoever did this has to pay. I can’t tell anyone and I don’t know how – I know I already said that, but—”

Sansa put her fingers over his mouth, quieting him. The roles, suddenly, reversed. Now it was her calming him. Now that he’d made the decision he felt a bit panicked. 

Oh, shit. Here it came. The panic attack. 

He felt as though he was dying.

Sansa pulled him up to his feet and pushed him onto the bed. “Head between your legs,” she ordered. 

He did as she asked and listened to Sansa as she told him how to breathe. “In…hold…out…in…hold…out.” She rubbed his back and he focused on the feel of her hand on him, and the sound of her voice. 

Breathe in. 

Hold.

Exhale.

It was his turn to cry, and he did, deep sobs wracking his body as the night caught up with him. He sat up and pulled Sansa into his arms, burying his face into her neck. “Don’t you ever tell me that I don’t care what happens to you,” he rasped. “I was terrified when Grenn called me and said there’d been an attack. I’ve never felt such fear.” He held her even tighter, his eyes shut tight. “It was my worst fear come to life. I thought I was going to lose my mind…” He pulled back just enough to take her wet face in his hands. “I put my gun to Tormund’s head for driving too slow, and then pointed it at Arya when she protested that.”

Sansa’s eyes widened. “How did they take that?”

“They wisely kept their mouths shut. Sansa, if anything happens to you I don’t live. Remember that.”

“Jon, don’t say that.”

“It’s true. First I’d kill the people responsible and then…”

“Don’t,” she admonished. 

“You just had to give me a minute to catch up, sweetling.”

She put her hands over his. “Are you sure you want to leave?”

“I wasn’t sure at all until now. I can’t keep you safe enough. I can’t keep you safe at all, and I can’t live like this. I can’t always wonder whenever I’m not with you if something is going to happen. I lived through that fear once before – that day…when I couldn’t reach you…then tonight. I can’t do it again.” She nodded. “But you have to give me some time. We need to make a plan…”

“I know.”

“I need to take care of whoever came after you, Sansa. Do you understand that?”

She nodded again. “Yes.”

He heaved a sigh and pressed his forehead to hers. “I love you,” he said achingly. “I love you so much.” And then he kissed her fervently, putting everything he felt in the kiss – his love, his fear – all of it. 

Sansa didn’t shy away from it. She met his passion, and gave as good as she got. When they parted, panting, she looked at him. “I do love you, Jon. I do. I’m sorry I lashed out—”

“No. Don’t apologize. You’re scared. You’re hurt, for fuck’s sake. Tonight has been a nightmare.”

She nodded, looking on the verge of tears again. Jon reluctantly detached himself from her and stood. “Come on, sweetling. Let’s get cleaned up, okay?”

“Are you going to bathe with me?”

The corner of his mouth quirked up into a grin. “Do you want me to?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He leaned in and kissed her softly. “Then I will.”


	34. Chapter 34

It was nearly dawn when Jon’s phone rang on the nightstand. Knowing that Sansa wanted to hear about Sandor’s condition as soon as such news was available, Jon groggily rolled over to answer it. 

Sansa rolled over as well, blinking sleepy eyes at him. 

“‘Lo?” he said, his voice hoarse from sleep. He cleared it and sat up, rubbing at his eyes. He listened to Edd give him the rundown on Sandor’s condition, and could tell that the longer it took, the more agitated Sansa got. She sat up, watching and waiting, looking worried. 

“Thanks, Edd,” Jon said and hung up. 

“Well?” Sansa prompted. 

“He made it through surgery. They managed to get the bullet out, though it was a tricky surgery and took a while. The doctor said he is very very lucky.”

“But he’s alive?” Sansa asked urgently. “He’s gonna make it?”

Jon nodded. “He’s gonna make it. He just needs to heal and with all that he’s been through, it could be a while before he wakes up.”

Sansa nodded as tears began to fall. “But he’s going to live.”

“Yes, sweetling, he’s going to live.”

She sniffled and climbed out of bed. She padded into the bathroom, closed the door, and a few minutes later she returned with some tissues in her hand and her face a bit damp as though she’d splashed some water on it. She’d fixed her hair too, putting it back up in a neat ponytail. 

Jon got up and went in to relieve himself, and to think about how to bring up the subject of Sandor. Probably not now, since it was still pretty late – or early depending on how one looked at it. 

He splashed some water on his face as well and washed his hands before making his way back into their bedroom. 

Sansa was lying down, but her eyes were open and just staring up at the ceiling. She was fiddling with her tissues on top of the covers with the hand of her good arm, and she looked at Jon as he climbed back into bed and lied down on his side facing her. “How’s your arm feeling?”

“It’s ok. Sore, which is expected. I’ll take another painkiller in another hour or so.”

Jon reached out and caressed the side of her face. “Why don’t you go back to sleep, sweetheart. Your body needs to heal.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You must be exhausted.”

She rolled onto her side, resting her bad arm along her side, and just looked at him. He watched her eyes scan over his face as though trying to commit him to memory, and he wondered what she was thinking. He wanted to ask her if there was some part of her that was in love with Sandor, but at the same time he was afraid to ask. Not only because he feared her answer, but because he was conscious of the fact that he was jealous. 

Jon was continuing to fight with himself on whether or not to just ask her when she moved closer to him and kissed him. 

Relief flooded through him, and he groaned as he placed his hand on her hip, careful not to touch her arm, to draw her closer and kiss her. 

Tears sprang to his eyes and he broke the kiss to gather her closer. 

“Jon?”

“I could have lost you,” he rasped. 

“You didn’t.” He wanted to thank her for saying that instead of “I know”, which was probably what she was really thinking. Sansa was well aware of how tonight could have turned out. She’d made that abundantly clear to him since he’d brought her back home, not that he hadn’t already been well aware. 

Once upon a time, Sansa would have been justifiably upset and shaken by tonight’s events, but on some level, she would have accepted that this was part of the world they lived in. The threat of death was imminent. Inescapable. She actively rejected those things now, as well one should. 

It just begged the question of how had he just blindly accepted it and lived this way for so long? What was wrong with him?

“But I could have,” he said, a bit of an edge to his tone. “What have I been doing with my life that this is something I just accepted before? You have always been under threat and I knew that I always knew that, but I just, what – put a couple more guards on you and get paranoid every time you leave the house? Sandor and Green were shot. Sandor almost died and if Grenn had – if whoever did this…”

“Jon—”

“I dragged you back here and put you back in harm’s way. This is my fault.”

“Dragging me back here was your fault, but not my being shot at.”

“It was,” he said hoarsely. “I knew that you’d be in danger again, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care because I wanted you with me, and would have done anything to have you back. So, then, what do I do? I make it so there’s another way you could be taken away from me. Make it so that this time you could have actually died.”

“Please stop. I can’t…” 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry for this. For _all_ of this. And I’m gonna get you out of it. I’m going to get _both_ of us out of it—”

She kissed him again, harder this time, probably just trying to shut him up. Whatever the reason, Jon let her. He would be on his way to another panic attack if he didn’t get derailed. 

She nudged at him, and Jon took the hint and lied down on his back. She climbed atop him carefully, and his hands instinctively went to her hips to hold her in place as she straddled him. This was a new development, and Jon wondered what she was up to. Surely she didn’t mean…?

Sansa pushed herself up and looked down at him, panting slightly, her breasts rising and falling and pushing against the tank top she wore. Jon felt himself getting hard. “Sansa?”

She bit her lip and pushed the hem of his shirt up the hand of her good arm. Jon took the hint and sat up slightly to help her remove it. Then she began to lift her tank top up with one hand, and he reached up to help her discard it. Jon not only went fully hard, but he thought he might perish right there on the bed. 

“Sansa,” he gasped at the sight of her breasts. 

She bent over him and kissed him. Jon pulled the elastic out of her hair and buried his hands in her hair. He could smell the shampoo he’s used earlier on her, and he kissed her deeper. Harder. 

He almost cried out in protest when she started to move away from him. He couldn’t take it now, couldn’t handle the promise of being connected to her in the most primal and intimate way being taken away from him. He needed that connection to her now more than ever. His skin felt tight, and his palms ached with the desire to touch her everywhere. 

But, instead of moving away from him, Sansa was dropping kisses on his chest, her hair brushing his chest and causing him to shiver. 

He mouthed her name, the power of actual speech escaping him as his body trembled under her ministrations. He wanted everything at once quickly, and he wanted to savor this and go slow so that he could remember every bit of it. 

When she got to his stomach, it clenched and it felt as though butterflies had been released inside. He grunted, and then nearly shot up off the bed when she scooted down further onto his calves and fished his cock out through the slit of his boxers with one hand.

“Sansa, Christ, I can’t – if you – Fuck!”

Her mouth was on him. That was all Jon could think. After so fucking long her mouth was on him again. His cock was being sucked by the love of his life, his reason for existing, and he had never been so close to fucking cumming in his life. 

“Sansa,” he choked out and moved his hands back into her hair. Whether to push her away or keep her close, he wasn’t sure. 

She hummed around his cock, her tongue flat against the underside of his cock, and his eyes rolled up in his head. She sucked on the head and his hands tightened in her hair. She deep-throated him and he had to push her away. 

He sat up, hands shaking as he drew her face to his and kissed her desperately. Sansa moved off of him and he chased her down onto the bed, kissing her again and again as he slid his hand down her body and under her shorts and panties. 

She was slick and hot, and Jon tore his mouth away from hers to curse. “Fuck, Sansa, you’re so wet.”

She nipped at his lips, teasing him, and he kissed her again as he slid two fingers inside her. Her hips bucked and she gasped into the kiss. She gripped his arm. “Jon, please…”

With his lips pressed against her temple and his other arm under her head like a pillow, he used his thumb to strum her clit. Her hips lifted, seeking more. Jon was prepared to give her anything and everything she wanted. 

He pulled his fingers from her and brought them to his mouth. She watched him heatedly as he licked his fingers and moaned, savoring the taste of her. She was hot and sweaty underneath him and he was overwhelmed with all that he wanted to touch and taste and stroke. 

He needed more. He needed _everything._

He began the descent down her body, starting with kisses along her neck. He licked at her pulse which fluttered under his tongue, and he moved lower, dropping kisses on her collarbone, and then, finally, her breasts. He flicked his tongue out at her nipple, and she sighed his name. He then took it in his mouth and sucked, while flicking his tongue against the hardened tip, and she moaned and ran one hand through his hair. Her legs shifted restlessly against his. 

He treated her other breast to the same attention and then continued down over her stomach, her hips, then, finally, he reached the top her shorts. He could smell her desire and it was the sweetest perfume. He sat up on his knees to the side and pulled down her shorts and threw them to the floor. Then he pulled down her panties and threw them on the floor with her shorts. 

He felt out of his fucking mind looking down at her naked flesh. When she’d been gone and he could no longer conjure up the image of her properly it had driven him insane. It had been like mourning her all over again. 

Now, he found that as much as he wanted to taste her and sink his cock inside her and never depart, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. He never wanted to forget again what she looked like. 

He got in between her legs and ran his shaking hand over her hips and down her thighs. She watched him, her eyes half-lidded with desire.

He never wanted to forget how silky her skin felt underneath his hands. 

He then lay down on his belly and, without missing a beat, Sansa put her legs over his shoulders just as she used to. 

He bent his head and licked at her slit, gathering the juices on his tongue. 

He never wanted to forget what she tasted like. Sweet and tart and Sansa. 

He curled his tongue around her clit first and then sucked at it while flicking his tongue repeatedly against it. 

“Jon,” she panted, one hand threading through his hair. God, he had always loved going down on her. The sounds she made. The way she said his name. The taste of her on his tongue. The way she pulled his hair. Her legs encasing his head. 

“Does that feel good, sweetheart?” he murmured and slid a finger inside her again. 

She nodded, her hand leaving his hair and touched her breasts – cupped them and tweaked her nipples. 

_Fucking hell._

Jon curled his fingers just so inside, rubbing against that spot that made her scream for him while he teased and sucked at her clit. 

When he felt her thighs lift, and the heels of her feet dig into his back, he knew she was close. 

And when she cried out, sobbing his name, Jon licked at her hungrily. 

“Jon,” she gasped. Her head nearly buried in the pillow beside her. 

He moved his mouth of her and wiped his beard on the inside of her thigh while her legs shivered from her orgasm. 

He moved her legs off of him and quickly discarded his boxers before moving over her. She pulled at him with one hand on his shoulder and he leaned down and kissed her fervently. 

“Do you have any idea how much I want you?” he asked softly. 

“I think so,” she said, her cheeks flushed, strands of her red hair sticking to her forehead. 

He laughed darkly, softly, “I think you’d run screaming from this room if you knew how much,” he told her as he gripped his cock and rubbed it against her folds. 

“Jon, now, please,” she begged and lifted her hips. 

The head of his cock slipped in and Jon shuddered. He wondered how he was going to last when he was ready to cum and not even fully inside her yet. “Sansa,” he gasped. “Christ.”

She reached for him and Jon was powerless to do anything but go to her. He thrust inside her fully, and in the next instant captured her lips fully. He shut his eyes and then tore his mouth away and nosed against her cheek. He needed to breathe and concentrate, and currently, he felt as though everything was centered on Sansa’s hot cunt pulsing around his cock. He was pressing her into the bed, but she didn’t seem to mind. He could feel her breasts against his chest, her legs wrapping around his waist, and her good arm around his waist pushing him into her further. Her other arm was above her head, her fingers loosely around the rails of the headboard. 

Everything was this. Everything was Sansa. Everything was them together. 

He could feel the sweat drip down his temple and he just didn’t care. Hot sweaty sex with Sansa was just what he needed. This was what they _both_ needed. Not just for the release, but for the intimacy, the connection, the assurance that they were alive, together again, and that going forward they would be together still. They would be a team, come what may. 

“I’m sorry,” he rasped as he glided out of her. She was so wet… He pushed back in, harder this time. “I’m sorry I ever made you feel you weren’t loved or wanted. I won’t ever make you feel that way again. Promise me you’ll tell me if I do.”

She nodded, pushing her forehead against his. 

“Say it, Sansa. You’ll tell me. You’ll tell me everything.”

“I promise,” she whispered. 

Jon pulled his head back so he could look at her as he kept moving, pushing, pumping inside her. He wanted to give her all that he was, all that he had. 

She met his gaze and he saw tears spilling down from the sides of her eyes. He stilled. “Am I hurting you?”

She shook her head. “No. Don’t stop, Jon, please.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I love you,” she said, her voice shaking. 

He felt the tears come with that emotional declaration. She hadn’t said it as directly as that before and it threw Jon’s already overwhelming emotions into overdrive. He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her reverently. He licked inside her mouth and she gasped and dug her fingers into his waist. 

Jon began to move inside her again as he broke the kiss. He kept his face close, locking his gaze on hers. He felt her breath on his face mingling with his own. He’d never wanted to devour another person the way he wanted to devour her. He felt like he couldn’t get close enough while at the same time feeling this was too much, and he was going to splinter apart right here in her arms. 

“Come for me, sweet girl,” he murmured as he slipped a hand between them and lifted up enough off of her to rub her clit. He was on the edge and wanted her to come before he did. 

Her mouth opened in a silent scream, her head arching off his arm which was still under her. Jon pulled his fingers away from her, and buried his face in her neck as he thrust once, twice, and then held himself inside her as he came. He roared through it, his body jerking. 

He collapsed against her, nosing against her cheek as he tried to catch his breath. Sansa was in the same predicament, and pressed as tightly together as they were, he swore he could feel her heart racing against his chest. 

“Oh my God,” Sansa said. 

Jon laughed a bit hoarsely. “You can say that again.”

“That was pretty epic.”

“Well worth the wait.” He kissed her languidly. “How’s your arm, sweetheart?”

She moved her arm from above her head and winced. “It’s okay.” Jon started to move off of her, but Sansa tightened her arm around him. “Stay,” she murmured. “Just for a little bit longer.”

He kissed the tip of her nose. “Okay.”

Soon, they both dozed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I'm spent.


	35. Chapter 35

Jon was sitting in the stuffed chair tucked in the corner of the bedroom watching Sansa sleep. He was dressed, in jeans and white dress shirt, and with no socks on yet. It was late, almost noon, and he’d been up for a couple hours now while Sansa slept on, just thinking. 

Thinking about the time they’d dated, their marriage, and all the shit that had happened since then. He thought about their lives might have been different if Ned Stark hadn’t been a mobster, and Jon and Sansa had just been the boy and girl next door without a family business to run. 

He thought about if Robb and Ned hadn’t been killed. If Theon hadn’t betrayed them. If he hadn’t killed Myrcella Lannister. Would they have found themselves here still? 

Jon tended to think yes. This kind of life was a pressure cooker. Sooner or later it got to be too much. You had two choices then: suck it up, soldier on, and create a hide so thick nothing can penetrate it. Or, leave. He’d done the first already and had lost Sansa in the process. He wouldn’t lose her a second time, nor would he lose the chance to have a real life. A life free of violence? A life free of worrying if today the day his number or Sansa’s number was up? The only question that remained now was why had it taken him so long to get here? 

But, he’d always held Ned up on a pedestal, and had always wanted to do right by the man. Plus, his own upbringing by a mother who hadn’t much cared what he did unless he’d done something wrong had made Jon try harder in everything to be noticed. To be applauded for a job well done. 

As a mob boss, though, that meant higher body counts, more money, and more territory. It also meant more enemies who were after the same things.

Part of him felt as though he had failed Ned, his father figure. The other part of him didn’t want to fail Sansa. He knew how it felt to face Sansa’s disapproval. He also knew how it felt to face Sansa being in danger. Being shot. It was not something he wanted to face again. Ever. 

As far as Ned…well, he’d like to think that Ned would prefer Jon do what he had to in order to keep Sansa safe. 

And then, of course, there was Arya….

Arya, whom Jon had a bad feeling about regarding what had happened last night. Arya hated Sansa just enough to do something like have her killed, and even if Arya had been with him the entire time, he didn’t put it past her to have someone carry out her plans. Perhaps even someone within the organization. Or the Lannisters, though that made less sense to Jon considering the Lannisters were responsible for Ned and Robb’s deaths. 

One thing Jon prided himself on was listening to his gut. Or, at least, he tried to. And something told him that he had to follow this thought that Arya had something to do with it to the end. 

“Jon?”

Jon looked over at Sansa who was sitting up in bed and he got up to help her. He came over and sat down facing her on the bed and helped her get situated. “How’s your arm feel?” he asked. 

“Sore,” she murmured sleepily. “What are you doing sitting over there?”

“Thinking.”

“Brooding,” she said with a bit of a smile. Her smile fell and she looked down pensively as she reached out and began to draw nonsensical patterns on his hand. “Do you regret it?”

It took him a few seconds to understand what it was she was asking him. He looked up at her in shock. “Do I regret making love to you?”

She nodded, still looking down. 

“No! God, no, Sansa. Never. I…” he sighed. “I was worried you regretted it.”

“I don’t,” she chirped. “And you’re all dressed now…”

He got up and tore his shirt open and yanked it off. Buttons when flying and Sansa laughed in shock. Jon then shucked off his jeans and climbed back into bed, only with his boxers still on. He pulled Sansa into his arms while she giggled, and kissed her. 

Sansa ran her fingers through his hair and Jon hummed happily with his eyes closed. He nuzzled under her chin and left a kiss on her throat. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she murmured. 

It would never get old, hearing that. And especially not now after all they’d been through. He had been afraid he’d never hear it again. His arms tightened around her and he buried his face in between her breasts with a soft smile on his face. He wanted this, just this, forever. 

“What were you thinking about?” she asked softly. 

“Everything. Our lives before now, when we were just dating—”

“And so awkward around each other?”

He smiled and looked up at her. “You weren’t awkward, sweetling, but I was.”

She shook her head. “I was too. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I stumbled over my words, I grew mute while thinking – say something, you idiot! I was so nervous around you.”

Jon moved so that they were eye-level. “How is it that I’m just hearing about this now?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I wanted you to be under the illusion that I had my shit together. I didn’t.”

He smiled and placed his hand on her hip, pulling her closer. “I was also thinking about what would have happened if your Dad hadn’t been a mobster and we were just the boy and girl next door, leading normal simple lives.”

Her smile faltered a bit. “That would have been nice,” she said wistfully. 

“And I was thinking about what Ned would think now. If he would be disappointed in me.”

“For?”

He sighed and looped some of her hair that had fallen over his shoulder on his finger. “For your being shot. For quitting.”

She stiffened. “Are you having second thoughts about leaving?”

“No,” he said. “God, no. I just…I’ve always wanted to prove myself, ya know? My mother never supported me, barely acknowledged my existence, and it was only when I fucked something up that she had something to say to me. So when your Dad started giving me his approval…it meant something to me.”

“And he’s dead doing what his father wanted him to do. What his father _expected_ him to do.”

Jon made a face. “Sansa.”

“Well, it’s true. My father was thrust into this life same as you were. Same as I was and Robb and Arya…we had no choice. I think…I mean, I know he had difficulty sometimes…at least I think he did. There were times when I’d catch him alone in his study, drinking, and looking as broody as you get.”

Jon tweaked her nose. “Brat.”

“But,” she continued as she ran the tip of her finger along his shoulder and down his collarbone, “I think he’d be okay with this. But honestly? I don’t care. I want us safe.”

Jon captured her hand before it went any further past his stomach, which is where it had drifted to. He had to think right now and if she got him too excited he wouldn’t be able to. 

“Listen to me,” he said. 

She looked at him. “Yes?”

“From this point on you don’t leave my side, okay?”

She nodded. “What happened last night with you?”

“Nothing. And I’m not sure if that means the Lannisters were tipped off or if they weren’t involved at all with our shipments being hijacked and Joe being robbed, but I don’t think it was a complete coincidence that you were targeted the same night I was out.”

Sansa nodded slowly. “You have an idea of who was behind it, don’t you?”

He sighed heavily and nodded. “I don’t trust Arya. Or Tormund. They got close after you returned and Arya has been particularly…”

“Vicious? She is a woman scorned.”

“Which is why I want you by my side at all times.”

“Won’t she be expecting that, though?”

“I don’t care.”

She laughed. “Okay then. So, how do you plan to figure it out? She was by your side last night, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then…you…think she hired someone?”

“Possibly. Or had someone on the inside do it for her.”

“But not Tormund. He was with you too. You know hit men, do you think it would be one of them?”

Jon frowned thoughtfully. “Possibly.”

“But they had a really shitty shot. The first shot ended up in the sand near my feet.”

His hand dug into her hip. “I’m glad he was a shitty shot.”

“But do you know any hit men that are shitty shots?”

“No.”

“Then…?”

“Anyone can have an off night. Even a trained killer.”

Sansa frowned. “How would we find something like that out without tipping Arya and Tormund off – assuming of course that they are behind it?”

“Well, first, I want to rule out the Lannisters completely. They’re still not off the table.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to have to call a meeting with Tyrion.”

“Would he tell you?”

“I have to start somewhere,” Jon said. “If Arya and Tormund are behind it they most likely want us to think the Lannisters were. That makes the most sense doesn’t it?”

“Of course. They’re our enemies.”

“Exactly,” Jon said and nodded. “And if I put the heat on them, perhaps Arya and Tormund will get sloppy.”

“It sounds like you’ve pretty much determined already that it is them.”

“I can’t shake that feeling…” He ducked his head and felt Sansa kiss the top of it. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“Where do I begin?” he asked with a shaky laugh. “For all the ways in which I’ve hurt you. Manhandled you. Put your life at risk. Made you doubt me…lied to you.”

“I’m not going to tell you that some of that was okay and its water under the bridge. I love you, Jon, but there are still things for us to work on.”

“I know,” he rasped. He lifted his head. “Sansa…”

“Hmmm?”

“If Arya is behind this…”

Sansa knew what he was going to say. She could see the regret in his face already. She could also see the pain there. Arya was her sister and had been like one to Jon. Plus, she was in love with Jon. Yet that love might have turned her so sour that she had determined that Sansa needed to die for real. 

“You’re going to kill her,” Sansa said softly. 

“I have to. She would hunt us down. I can’t take that chance – we can’t take that chance.”

Sansa welled up in tears. She knew he was right. “She’s my sister still,” she protested. 

“I know. She means a lot to me too, Sansa, you know that.”

“I do. That is – that is what my father would not approve of. I don’t want her to be the one behind this, Jon.”

“I don’t want her to be either, but if she set out to have you killed I can’t just let that go. Especially if there is a chance, however small, that she could track us down when we leave. I don’t want us living in fear that she’s going to kill you if you decide to go down to the market one day.”

“I know. I do know…it’s just hard to contemplate that she might want me dead and if that’s the case that… we’re laying here talking about the potential of my sister having something to do with wanting me dead and almost killing Sandor and I’m just…hurt. I knew she hated me but I didn’t think she would actually _seriously_ want me dead.”

“I’m sorry, sweetling.”

“Can you just hold me?”

“Of course,” he said and wrapped his arms around her. 

Sansa cried softly into his chest, wondering where in her relationship with Arya she could have done something different, better, to make Arya love her. 

And where did it come from? Was it solely Jon that had turned her so completely against her, or had he just been the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

She couldn’t help but feel partly responsible for Arya’s madness if she was behind this. If she’d been able to stay “dead”, all this would have never happened. Yet with Arya’s obsession with Jon, would something else have triggered it and caused her to lash out at someone else? 

_I’m sorry, Dad,_ she thought. _If I can find another way….help me._


	36. Chapter 36

Jon and Sansa got ready for the day at a snail's pace. Neither one wanted to leave the confines of the bedroom and face what was beyond the door, but they also knew there was no choice in the matter. While Jon pulled on his shoes, Sansa sat beside him, hands demurely folded in her lap. She wore linen capris, a sleeveless top, and sandals. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, long and sleek and over her shoulder. She looked tired, and the bandage on her arm was a glaring reminder of what had happened to her the night before, even if she appeared otherwise put together. 

When Jon finished putting his shoes on, he sat up and pulled Sansa into his side and kissed her forehead. "By my side at all times, okay?"

"Even when I have to pee?"

He poked her gently in the ribs and she giggled. Then she sighed the sigh of someone who had something weighing on their mind. "Jon, I want to see Sandor."

"Yeah, I figured you might want to," he said softly. "After we have something to eat?"

"Does he have guards on him?” she asked worriedly. “I'm concerned about one of our enemies, no matter who they might be at this point, could do something to him while he’s in a coma.”

"Edd was with him all night, but I will set up a rotation. Will that make you feel better?”

"Yes, thank you." She looked up at him and kissed the corner of his mouth. "Where is Grenn? I want to check on him too."

"He's in one of the guest rooms upstairs. He sustained no permanent damage so the doctor just came and patched him up like you."

"I'm beginning to think that whoever did the shooting might have had more than an off night. Except, for some, reason when it came to Sandor. Although, we all bob and weaved when we were running for the house."

"My next step after I talk to Tyrion is to contact the hit men I've used in the past."

"Do you think they'll tell you? I can't imagine they would admit to anything."

"With the right incentives they might."

She bit her lip as she looked up at him. "Would those incentives involve threatening them?"

"I'll have backup. It'll be more than threats."

"Will you let them live if they admit to it?"

Jon frowned. "Do you care?"

"Yes and no, which sounds a bit more callous than I'd like." She sighed. "Then I think of Sandor dying and I don't give a fuck. Jon?"

"Yes, sweetling?"

"How will you be able to kill Arya if it's her? Have you really thought about that?"

She felt his body go tense. "If she is guilty that means she's guilty of trying to murder you, Sansa. You think I can let that go?"

"She's been like a sister to you. She's been your sister-in-law."

"And she tried to seduce me and take your place."

Sansa pulled away from him and stood up. She didn't like to think about that. 

Jon looked up at her. "I'm not saying it's going to be easy,” he said “It's hard to think about the fact that she could be behind this, but she'd be a threat to us, to you, and I can't allow that. Besides which, if she is behind this then she tried to _kill_ you, Sansa. That makes her the enemy.”

"I just keep thinking of what my father would say. I'm trying to think of what he would do...I can't imagine him having to face such a thing."

"Your father wouldn't have Arya killed. Most likely banished or sent away to an institution where she could get help and be neutralized--"

"Could we do that then?"

Jon sighed. "Sansa."

"Jon, you have connections everywhere. I'm pretty certain that the only reason the cops haven't been knocking on our door after Sandor was admitted was because a. you have cops on your payroll and b. you have staff at the hospital on your payroll, too. You're telling me you don't have some way to have her committed?"

"And when the day comes that she leaves?"

"We'll be long gone."

"And you don't think she'll come after us?"

Sansa made a face. "Well, maybe she'd be all at peace with everything by then..."

"Sansa."

She sighed. "Don't say my name like that. Like I'm being a child. She might hate me and I might not be her biggest fan, but she's still my sister. Your predecessor’s _daughter_.”

Jon hung his head. He sighed heavily and then looked up at her. “I know she is. I’m not happy about it either, but I have to keep you safe, Sansa. Keep us both safe, because there is no guarantee she won’t come after me too. Is that what you want? For us both to be targets?”

“Why does it always have to be so black and white?” she exclaimed in frustration. 

“You know as well as I do there isn’t any gray.”

She did know that. She just didn’t like it. And it served to be another pro in the ‘get the fuck out of this world now’ column. 

Jon got to his feet, looking weary and beat down, his shoulders slumped. “Let me think about it, all right?”

She nodded. 

Jon cupped her face in his hands and kissed her softly. “You’re amazingly kind you know that?”

She shook her head. “I’m not that kind.”

“Kinder than I am.”

“Well, if we’re comparing my kindness to yours, then yeah.”

He laughed softly and kissed her again. “Let’s get some breakfast.”  
“I think lunch is more apt at this point.”

“Either way.”

Hand-in-hand, Jon and Sansa walked down to the kitchen and just as they entered, Arya came breezing in through the front door. She stopped in her tracks at the sight on Jon and Sansa, her gaze drifting down to their entwined hands and then back up again. 

Sansa dropped Jon’s hand and went to the coffee pot to give herself something to do. Her heart was pounding in her chest. How did one act normal when one suspected someone of trying to have them murdered?

“Arya,” Jon said by way of greeting. 

“Jon,” Arya replied. 

Sansa heard shuffling behind her and she jumped when she felt Jon’s hand on the small of her back while he reached over to grab his mug off the counter just past her. Sansa decided that perhaps putting her back to Arya was not a good idea considering how she almost just spilled the coffee she’d just poured herself. 

“So…Sansa,” Arya said. 

Sansa turned, bracing herself – for what she didn’t know. It wasn’t like Arya was going to open fire on her right then and there. 

Or would she?

“Yes?” Sansa asked, noting how she sounded a bit anxious. 

Arya gestured to her, but wouldn’t even look her in the face. She actually looked nervous. “I’m glad you’re alive and all,” she mumbled and then walked out before Sansa could say a word. 

Sansa just stood there, feeling a bit shell-shocked by that gesture. 

Jon touched her arm, gaining her attention and she looked at him. The both of them shared looks of _‘What the fuck just happened?’_ and then Jon cleared his throat and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

xxxxxxxxxxx

After lunch, Jon and Sansa both went to check on Grenn. Meanwhile, Yoren was leading a further investigation in the woods. Jon ordered Tormund not to join them and sent him on what seemed to Sansa a needless trip to the warehouse and to Joe’s to check on things.

“And what are your plans, boss?” Tormund asked after receiving his orders. 

“I’m going with Sansa to check on Sandor,” Jon said. 

Tormund nodded, and then his gaze shifted to Sansa who stiffened under his gaze. “We’ve had our differences,” he told her softly. “But I’m glad you were not more hurt.”

Sansa swallowed hard and nodded. “Thank you, Tormund.”

“She could have died last night,” Jon said sounding casual as he adjusted the cuffs on his dress shirt. “I don’t think I need to tell you that there will be no mercy for whoever did this.” He stopped fixing his cuffs and looked at Tormund, his gaze a cold unwavering stare. 

“Of course not,” Tormund said and met Jon’s gaze straight on. A statement of innocence? An avowal of his loyalty? Sansa wasn’t sure. All she knew was that if she was Tormund she’d be shitting herself right about then. 

Jon put his hand on the small of her back. “Come, love, let’s go see Sandor.” How he spoke to her was a stark contrast to how he’d spoke to Tormund. It was moments like that that reminded Sansa of why he was a successful mob boss. He could put the fear of God into someone whilst doing something as innocuous as adjusting the cuffs on his dress shirt. 

She could almost pity Tormund if he had anything to do with it, for Sansa was pretty certain that Tormund would not be afforded the same consideration that Arya might get. 

xxxxxxxxx

Sansa stopped in the doorway of Sandor’s room, causing Jon to knock into her. He put his hands on her waist. “Sweetheart, you can’t just stop like that.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, her voice already shaking at the sight of her guard and friend. Her eyes were already welling up at the sight of him lying there, hooked up to machines. The only sound in the room was of the beep of the machine next to him. 

She moved forward quickly and grabbed Sandor’s hand, clutching it tightly in her own. She looked over at Edd who smiled sympathetically at her. “He’s going to be okay, right?” she asked him. 

Edd nodded. “He’s going to be fine. He just has a lot of healing to do.”

Sansa tried to smile, but it was difficult. She looked over at Jon, tears dripping onto her cheeks. “It’s just that he’s been part of my life for so long. He’s always been there protecting me. He’s part of our family, Jon.”

Jon came over and wrapped an arm around her waist. He kissed her temple and murmured, “I know, sweetling.”

“He’s been injured before but not like this. I thought he was dead,” she said and started to cry in earnest. Jon pulled her into his arms, forcing her to let go of Sandor’s hand. He let her cry it out, and on his suit jacket, too. 

She pulled back, accepting the tissues that Edd handed her and she smiled at him sadly, gratefully, and then wiped at her eyes as she heaved in a shuddering breath in an attempt to calm herself. “Could I just have a few minutes alone with him?” she asked Jon. 

She didn’t miss the look that she couldn’t quite place pass over his features, but then he nodded, kissed her forehead, and waved to Edd to follow him out into the hall. 

Once they’d left and Sansa was alone with Sandor, she dragged the stool that was against the wall and dragged it next to Sandor’s bed. She sat down, took his hand, and studied it. How big it was. How she thought he might be able to crush skulls with it. Right now, though, there was no life in it and it was jarring to see Sandor like this. 

“You’re going to be a miserable patient when you wake up, I know it,” she said. “You’re going to be barking at everyone, even me, even your Little Bird.” She lifted his hand and kissed the back of it. “I can’t thank you enough for saving my life.” She started to cry again. “And yet that doesn’t seem right. You saved me, but I never wanted this, Sandor. To see you hurt. To think you almost dead. You’ve been such a part of my life…and I know I wasn’t here for a time, but I still thought of you every day.” She sighed again and wiped at her tears. “I want you to be happy, Sandor. You’re going to wake up and you’re going to heal and we’re going to find what you need to be happy, okay? I have so much to tell you…No matter what happens I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of. Always.” She felt yet another onslaught of tears come and she forced herself to keep it together as she said, “You’re my best friend and I love you.”

She kissed his hand again, got up, and left, going straight back into Jon’s arms.


	37. Chapter 37

“We have a meeting with Tyrion tomorrow,” Jon said later that evening when he returned to Sansa who was sitting on top of their bed playing solitaire. 

She glanced up at him while moving cards this way and that. “We?”

“Yes, you and I have a meeting with him tomorrow,” he said as he sat down on the bed facing her. 

She stopped playing and looked at him. “You’re going to let me sit in on a meeting with Tyrion Lannister?”

“You’re safer with me than with anyone else. Tyrion won’t do anything to us. I trust him…insomuch as one can trust a Lannister.”

Sansa pursed her lips together and resumed laying out cards. “He’s always been the more level-headed of them. I see him as the brains, Jaime as the brawn, and Cersei as the wild card.”

“You hit the nail on the head with that one.” He watched her for a minute or two, frowning as she moved cards about. “I never understood how to play this game.”

“I’m not even playing it right,” she said. “At least I don’t think so.” She sighed and tossed the cards in her hand down on the bed and looked at him. “So we need to talk.”

He nodded. “I know,” he said. He sighed and began to say, I know it’s ridiculous—” at the same time Sansa said, “Do you have a few passports?”

They both stopped and looked at each other. Then at the same time they said, “What?” Then “You go first.” 

Jon laughed softly. “Any doubt why we’re married?”

The side of her mouth twisted up into a bit of a sly grin. She gestured to him. “What were you saying? Something is ridiculous?”

He cleared his throat and shook his head. “No no. What is this about passports?”

She narrowed her eyes at him as though she knew he was avoiding and said, “Passports. With aliases. You have them?”

He locked his gaze on hers. “Yes.”

“I trust they are locked up in different places, like safety deposit boxes in safes?”

He nodded once. 

“Good. That will make escaping easier.”

“Is that…that’s how you did it?”

“My father took me aside before we got married. I imagine he took all his kids aside one-by-one and taught them how to escape if they had to.”

“He never taught me,” Jon said. 

She stared at him, a bit like a deer in the headlights. “Oh.”

“When did he teach you all this?”

“I think I was sixteen when he started talking about it to me. But when I was eighteen was when he sat me down and told me what I had to do in detail.”

Jon didn’t say anything. He just stared down at the bed, presumably at the cards that were spread out. Sansa felt terrible. Here he was thinking that Ned had considered him one of his own, and yet he hadn’t fully treated him as such. Jon, who had wanted so badly to belong to a family had been welcomed into one, but not completely. 

Essentially, Ned had given her the tools to escape Jon if she so wished. Or, as Ned had put it – if there came a time when she had to leave the business to save her life. She certainly wasn’t going to tell Jon that before they’d wed, Ned had gone over again possible escape plans in case she had to leave Jon or, in the event of Jon’s death, the business. 

Strangely, he had never taught all his kids together and Sansa now knew that had been by design. Not even familial relationships were a guarantee for trust and safety. Case in point: Arya. 

But now Sansa could see where in teaching her how to escape in case she had to, her father had not only been giving her a means to survive, but had sent the message that there could come a time when she would not be able to trust the people she was supposed to be able to trust. She hadn’t thought about it that way at the time, but it made sense to her now. She had thought with Jon she had someone to trust fully and completely and she thought she had. Then things went south and…

Was it possible she’d given up too easily? 

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. 

“What are you sorry for?” he asked, and it came out a bit harshly. He was angry. Or at least very hurt. 

“That he didn’t teach you? That he gave me the means to…” she trailed off, waving her hand in a “proceed” motion. 

“To leave me?”

She nodded. “I never really thought about it until now how doing something like that kind of set us all up not to trust anyone. Not even our family.”

“Not even your husband.” He got up off the bed and rolled his shoulders. He gestured to her. “Not that I gave you much reason to trust me though, right?” 

“You did everything you could to keep me safe,” she allowed. 

“But I let everything else as your husband fall to shit.”

She couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she looked down at her abandoned card game. 

“I figured it out on my own,” he said, breaking the deafening silence. “It wasn’t too hard to figure out. You pick up things.”

Sansa nodded and looked back up at him. “So what we need to discuss is how we do it. If we both fake our deaths they’ll all know.”

“If we just disappear they’ll know, too.”

“So this is actually the hardest part. The how.”

Jon shook his head. “It’s actually not.”

She cocked her head to the side as she knit her brows together and looked at him. “Explain?”

“Sansa, you were gone for three years. Every trail came up cold. Granted, it would have gotten cold by the time I thought maybe you weren’t dead. You were found by _accident_. We just need to recreate that with a few changes and we can just go.”

“Just go? Just like that?” She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jon.”

“Sansa, we’re under a microscope. We have been since you returned.”

“Returned…kidnapped…tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to…”

He shot her a look. “Sansa.”

“I’m just saying.” She snapped her fingers then as an idea struck her. “I could go first. Make them all think I left you again. Then you wait a week or something and go. Leave a note that says you’ve gone to find me and that’s it. The end.”

“I don’t trust any of them to not go after you.”

“Well, look at it this way: who is really against me here? I mean, enough to want me gone for good the second time around? Arya and Tormund, presumably are it.”

“Presumably.”

She sighed, frustrated. “So then I say I need to get away from you and from everything here. I say I’m going to Ogunquit to clear my head and you give me, say, an hour head start and then you say you’re going to follow me. Maybe we go to Ogunquit for a couple days and you check in every now and then so they can’t later trace where you were calling from. You let them think we’re working things out. Then you don’t check in. We leave our phones behind and we go.”

“So you want a show. You want to put on a play.”

“Yes. If nothing else it will buy us some time and already put distance between us and them.”

Jon sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what this all comes down to anyway. Us and them.”

Sansa looked down and said quietly, “You don’t have to go, Jon.”

He sat down on the bed so fast she jumped. She heard the crackle of cards bending under his weight. Putting his finger under her chin, he lifted it and made sure she was looking him in the eyes when he said fiercely, as fierce and as determined as he looked, “Yes, I do. You’re my wife. You’re my Sansa.” He leaned in closer and Sansa’s breath caught just as his fanned across her mouth. “I’m not losing you again.” He kissed her hard and possessively and then, when they were both breathless, he pressed his forehead against hers, one hand at the nape of her neck, the other gripping her hand on her lap. “We’ll revisit this plan again.”

“Jon…”

The trepidation in her voice gave Jon pause. He pulled back and looked at her. “Yes?”

“There is, perhaps, a wrinkle in all this.”

“There are several, Sansa, but sure. What is it?”

“Sandor,” she said softly. “I want him out, too.”

Jon pulled away completely. He studied her, looking for…what? Traces of love for Sandor written on her face? “You want to take him with us?”

She smiled, clearly missing the warning in his tone. “The three of us on a grand adventure to somewhere new? Sure, why not?” she said laughingly. Her laughter and smile died when she got a good look at him. “What is it?”

“Are you in love with him?” he asked bluntly. “Is there some part of you that’s in love with Sandor?”

Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him, shock clearly written on her face. “What?” she sputtered. “Am I--? _What?”_

Okay, now he felt a bit foolish. But just a bit. He stood again and waved his hand out in front of him. “What am I supposed to think, Sansa? He’s the one you’ve always relied on and turned to—” 

“Yeah, when I couldn’t rely and turn to you anymore!” she exclaimed. 

“But I’m here now,” he said and pointed at himself, jabbing his fingers against his chest. “You just told me last night that he would have taken you away from here if you wanted to go. Then, the way you sobbed over him and wanted to be alone with him—” 

“Stop! Just stop.” 

He did, but he didn’t really want to. He was breathing hard as he looked down at her, waiting for her explanation. She looked back at him in utter disbelief. “Sandor has been my guard and my friend since I was seventeen years old. No, not just my friend, my best friend. You had Arya, I had Sandor. And that doesn’t take away anything that you and I were before, are now, and ever will be in the future.” 

“He’s _in love_ with you, Sansa,” Jon said, aware that he sounded pretty condescending in the way he articulated each word so carefully and slowly. 

“Maybe he is—” 

Jon threw up his hands in exasperation. “How can you not see it?!” 

“All right fine. Let’s say for arguments sake he’s in love with me. That doesn’t automatically mean that I’m in love with him. I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t care about him a great deal. I’m not hiding the fact that I do. And I won’t pretend that I don’t because it makes you uncomfortable and irrationally jealous.” 

“You would protect him with your life wouldn’t you?” Jon asked softly. 

She looked at him, gaze unwavering. “Yes. And I think I’ve proven that I would do the same for you.” 

Jon didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t be more jealousy-fueled accusations. He couldn’t help it. “I want to be the only one you want by your side,” he rasped. God, he couldn’t believe he’d just said that aloud. 

“That’s not very realistic is it?” 

“No,” he whispered harshly. “I know it’s not.” 

She got up slowly from the bed and faced him. “I’m in love with you, Jon. I’ve always been in love with you. I’ll be in love with you until I’m dead." 

Jon lunged at her. That was the only way to really describe pushing her backwards against the wall with his lips on hers. When her back hit the wall, she let out a squeak and Jon cursed himself for being so rough. “Did I hurt you?” he asked, panting. 

“No, no,” she said quickly. “Just took me by surprise.” Her hands went up to his face and she placed one on each side of his face. “Don’t stop.” 

“Never,” he muttered and kissed her again as he undid the snap of her jeans, hastily unzipped them, and then shoved them down her hips along with her panties. He pressed his thumb against her clit and she made a keening sound of need in the back of her throat that went straight through his dick. 

“God, fuck, you’re so wet,” he said as he pushed two fingers inside her slowly. 

“I’ve been waiting – oh, God, yesss…” 

“Waiting?” he prompted. “What have you been waiting for, sweet girl?” 

“For the serious discussion to be over with so we could fuck again.” 

Jon groaned and kissed her deeply, licking inside her mouth as his fingers twisted inside her and hit that bundle of nerves he knew got her off in no time flat. 

She tore her mouth from his and cried out and Jon pulled his fingers from her and quickly undid his pants. He shoved them along with his boxers down, and then lifted her up with one arm around her waist. Her legs went around his waist,and he pushed her back against the wall and plunged inside her. “Oh fuck, yes, Sansa, fuck, your pussy is sucking me inside you…” 

She smiled against his lips, a vixen’s smile. “Fuck me, Jon,” she whispered. 

“Forever,” he vowed as he began pumping inside her with short hard strokes. “You’re mine forever.” 

She kissed him sweetly, lovingly, and it was such a stark contrast to how he was rutting inside of her. He slowed his thrusts, and pulled her from the wall. Her carried her to the bed carefully, aware that his pants weren’t even off, and lay her down. Pulling her to the edge of the bed, Jon bent her legs back and pushed back inside her. He looked down at his cock moving in and out of her, watched how she took him in and gripped around his cock when he pulled back. The sight of it had Jon ready to explode. 

Sansa’s eyes were half mass as she looked up at him, and her breasts were moving with each thrust. She was a sight. An erotic sight. A Goddess of Love and Beauty who was his and his alone. 

“I love you so much,” he gasped as he placed his thumb back on her clit and began to rub it up and down. 

She cried out, her back arching, her legs stiffening and then trembling. She was practically sobbing as she came, the little pulses of her pussy around his cock urging him to come too. 

He did. He came so hard he thought he might black out. He held himself inside her to the hilt, filling her with his seed, feeling her walls pulling his cum into her body. 

His legs were shaking and managed to brace himself on his arms on either side of her head. He was panting as he looked dazedly down at his beautiful wife smiling dreamily up at him. Her hands drifted down his chest and Jon’s cock twitched inside her. “Sansa,” he gasped, and he wasn’t sure if that was a plea to stop or continue. 

“Kiss me,” she whispered. 

Happily, Jon obliged. 


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure do hope this makes sense. Sometimes what's in my head doesn't always come out the best on "paper".

Tyrion wanted to meet at a restaurant, a big Italian restaurant that saw a lot of traffic. He’d reserved a room just for the three of them. It was comforting to Sansa that they were meeting in a family restaurant since the likelihood of an ambush happening that way was slim to none. Too easy to get caught by the cops in a set-up like that. Mobsters really didn’t like to have any red tape. 

The room was round, and sectioned off from the rest of the restaurant, and was clearly for a good-sized party of at least ten. There was a glass wall along one side of the room and there were waitresses and waiters bustling back and forth across it. The table was oblong and rather wide, and Tyrion had a bottle of white wine waiting for them. He smiled big when he saw Sansa. 

“The Lady Stark lives,” he said in a booming voice. 

“Hello, Tyrion,” Sansa said cordially and thanked Jon softly when he pulled out a chair for her. 

Tyrion gestured to Jon with both hands. “So far away?” There were at least four spaces between them and Tyrion. 

“I suppose we could move closer,” Sansa said and looked up at Jon who had his hands on top of the chair he was about to occupy next to her. 

He nodded. “Sure, all right.”

Jon situated himself between her and Tyrion and kept a chair between them at that. Tyrion poured them both glasses of the wine and then leaned forward, his arms folded on top of the wooden table. “So, I heard there was a shooting at your house.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed. 

“There was,” Sansa said and held up her injured arm, showing him her bandage. 

“No serious damage?”

“Just a flesh wound.”

Tyrion pointed at her. “ _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_.”

“Did you do it?” Jon asked, his voice rising above Tyrion’s amused chuckle. 

Tyrion’s smile fell. He pushed a plate of rolls and then a plate of oil mixed with herbs and garlic toward them. “No, Jon, I did not,” he said.

“Cersei then? Jaime?”

Tyrion shook his head. “No.”

“Might you have any idea who then?” Sansa asked and picked up a roll. It was still warm. 

“I do have an idea, actually, which is why I am pleased that you called, Jon. It saved me a step,” Tyrion said. 

Jon just looked at him, waiting. 

“He’s a man of many words, isn’t he?” Tyrion asked Sansa rhetorically. 

“Stop flirting with my wife and tell me what you know about the shooting,” Jon said. “Are you sure that your crazy sister and brother had nothing to do with it? And what of our shipments that have gone missing or been hijacked completely? What of Joe’s being robbed? We had an agreement, Tyrion.”

“You forget that I am still a Lannister,” Tyrion said, his voice rising to match Jon’s. “I may be the most level-headed of the bunch, and you and I may get along well enough when we’re not, you know, in competition, but I still do have a business to run. However…I had nothing to do with Joe being robbed or your missing shipments. Nor did any of us have anything to do with the shooting.”

“How did you hear about it?” Sansa asked. 

“You know as well as I do how good news travels fast and bad news travels faster,” Tyrion told her. 

“So, which was the attack? Good news or bad news?” Sansa asked. 

Tyrion grinned and picked up a roll. He pointed at Sansa with it. “I like her, Snow. I think you should keep her.” On a mutter, he added, “If you can.”

“You son of a bitch,” Jon snarled. 

Sansa discreetly put her hand on Jon’s knee when he seemed ready to lunge across the table. He withdrew and sat back, glaring. 

“I will tell you,” Tyrion said casually as he tore into the roll and dipped one-half of it in the oil, “That Jaime did bring to my attention a tip he received.”

“A tip?” Jon asked, with one brow arched. “What sort of tip?”

“Not the monetary kind,” Tyrion said. He frowned. “Pity.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. 

“Jaime received a call.” Tyrion licked his fingers clean one-by-one and smirked at Sansa. Was he flirting with her? 

“A call?” Jon drawled in disbelief. 

“That’s what I said. Whoever it was had one of those contraptions to disguise their voice. They told him a trap had been laid on the Snow/Stark shipments and to stay away. None of us knew what it was about, but we’ve since learned since one of our shipments was hijacked yesterday. Just before you called actually.”

Jon arched a brow. “Oh?” 

Tyrion nodded slowly. “A new player is in town. Her name is Daenerys Targaryen. She left us a crateful of business cards with just her name on them.”

“That name sounds familiar,” Sansa murmured. 

“Ned did business with a Targaryen once,” Jon said. “It didn’t end well.”

“He killed her father and they were run out of town,” Tyrion said. Sansa flinched. “It seems Miss Targaryen has now inherited the business, which must mean her brother Aegon is now dead. I am going to go out on a limb and say she might perhaps want to work with me,” Tyrion said. “It’s the only reason I can come up with for why she has made herself known to me, but apparently not to you.”

Sansa put her elbow on the arm of her chair and rubbed her forehead. “Another enemy,” she muttered. 

“It’s all very exhausting, isn’t it?” Tyrion asked her. 

Sansa looked at him in annoyance. “Yes.”

“How exactly did you find out about the shooting, Tyrion?” Jon demanded. 

“I have eyes and ears everywhere, just like you. I was told by someone on the hospital staff when Sandor Clegane was admitted.”

“Stay away from him,” Sansa blurted out harshly. 

Tyrion shook his head. “I’ve no interest in your guard, Sansa. I’m more interested in the Targaryen problem.”

“You don’t want to work with this Daenerys?” Jon asked. 

“No. I’ve heard of them. They’re crazy.”

“Crazier than your lot?” Jon asked with a chuckle. 

“They light people on fire. So, yes.” Tyrion glared at Jon. “For some reason, I find that distasteful and uncouth. It’s worse than, say, taking one’s hand.”

Jon smirked. “He had it coming.”

Tyrion snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “ _Chicago_.”

“So you want to team up and dispose of the Targaryen’s,” Jon said. “Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Precisely,” Tyrion said. 

“No,” Sansa said forcefully. “God dammit, no.”

“Sansa,” Jon said gently and placed a hand on her arm. 

“I just can’t anymore,” she said and shook her head. She pushed her seat back and got up. “I’m going to use the Ladies Room. Excuse me.”

Jon watched her go, and when he turned back towards Tyrion with a sigh, he found Tyrion looking at him thoughtfully. “She faked her death, didn’t she?” he asked. 

Jon didn’t answer. 

“You don’t have to tell me. I figured. Bang up job she did of it, too. Ever consider doing the same?”  
Jon looked at him sharply and Tyrion shrugged. “I think of it sometimes,” he said wearily. “I’m exhausted and getting too old for this shit. It was enough with just you and the rest of your clan, but now this?” He rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes briefly. “I wanted to be a writer, you know. I love to read, and I know I’ve got some good stories inside me to tell. Non-mob related stories. I’m talking Harry Potter kind of stuff.” He sighed again. “Instead, I get to fight for my life and the life of my family every goddamn day and attempt to do the memory of a man I hated justice. It’s all very tiring.”

Jon just stared at him, thinking partly that yes, it was tiring and this new wrinkle of someone new to defend themselves against was more than he wanted to handle right now, and partly that he felt sort of sorry for Tyrion. He sounded as done with the business as Sansa was. As Jon was too. And, it hadn’t hit Jon just how tired he was until now. Until the warning of another looming threat. It was someone else to protect Sansa from. He was done. Just utterly done. He wanted justice for what had been done to Sansa, and yet at the same time, he just wanted to pack it all in now. He wanted to leave this restaurant with Sansa and keep going, never to look back. 

“The question now is,” Tyrion said, “who placed that call?”

Jon knew the answer. “It had to be an inside job,” he muttered. “If Daenerys wants to work with you, she’s not going to create a war between us. She wouldn’t want to risk being found out.”

“There has always been a war between us, Jon,” Tyrion said. “If she was watching you, and knew what you were up to, and placed the call to warn us not to hijack your shipments—”

“And then Sansa was attacked while I was not at home with her,” Jon continued. 

“Then she knew you’d blame us. She might have expected you to retaliate.”

“Knowing you would then retaliate.”

“And then she slips in and offers me her help against you. Even if I did discover her duplicity, it would be too late at that point to do much, wouldn’t it?”

“Or, like I said, it was an inside job,” Jon said. 

Tyrion cocked his head to the side. “You sound like you know who it is already.”

“I have an idea.”

“So then why are we here?” Tyrion asked. 

“Because,” Jon said, “I don’t want it to be who I think it is.”

xxxxxxxxx

Sansa leaned over the sink in the restroom and shut her eyes tight. God, another enemy. Another reason to worry. What if Jon decided that now he couldn’t leave? What if he decided the risk was too great now or that he couldn’t leave his men to deal with this Daenerys person?

Why could nothing be easy?

The phone in her purse jolted her out of her musings and she dug inside and extracted it, answering without even looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”

“Get me the fuck out of his shit hole.”

Sansa gasped and tears sprang to her eyes. Tears of happiness this time. “Sandor! You’re awake!”

“Either you come and get me out of here, or I’m gonna walk on my own,” he groused. 

“Don’t go anywhere. We’re coming. I promise. Just don’t do anything stupid like pull out your IV’s and monitors.”

“Too late,” he muttered. 

Sansa barked out a laugh, though it wasn’t really funny. It was just that she was so relieved. 

“Little Bird,” he said softly. 

“Yes?”

“How hurt are you?”

“It was just a graze.”

He let out a breath that sounded like relief. “Good.”

“You scared the shit out of me, Sandor,” she admonished him. 

“Take more than a couple bullets to get rid of me.”

“I don’t want to be rid of you.”

“Then come and get me, Little Bird.”

She smiled. “I’m coming.”


	39. Chapter 39

“I’m not staying,” Jon said as soon as he and Sansa were in the car and on their way to collect Sandor. “The Targaryen woman changes nothing, Sansa.”

She looked over at him, feeling as though a two ton weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “Thank God,” she breathed. 

Jon reached out for her hand and she took it and squeezed. He kissed her knuckles and rested their entwined hands on the consul between them as he drove with one hand. “Tyrion told me how tired he was while you were in the bathroom,” he said. 

“Tired of…?”

“The business. He asked me if you’d faked your death. I didn’t answer, but he knew. He actually asked me if I considered doing the same.”

“What did you say?” Sansa asked in surprise.

“Nothing. I glared at him.”

She laughed lightly. “I think I can imagine the exact glare you gave him.”

Jon smiled lopsidedly. “He told me wanted to be a writer, wanted to write non-mob stories like Harry Potter.”

Sansa smiled broadly. “I could see that actually.”

“He said that instead of doing that, he’s now responsible for his family business and the lives of his family, and all of it inherited from a man he loathed.”

“Tywin Lannister was a complete prick,” Sansa said with a nod of her head. “I met him once when I was sixteen. He called me Betty, and told my father, who was standing right next to me, that I would probably end up pregnant before long. I wanted to punch him in the face.”

“I’m sure Ned did too.”

She nodded. “He didn’t say anything, but the look on his face said it all. He just steered me away from Tywin and told me no matter what, I was to stay away from him.”

“Good advice.”

“I thought when Tyrion told you about Daenerys, you would feel compelled to stay. That you would feel you couldn’t abandon your men.”

“No, all I felt was as tired as Tyrion.”

“Really?” she asked hopefully. 

He nodded. “Really. It’s another goddamn threat, Sansa. Another thing to protect you from and deal with. Maybe the idea of leaving it all behind and starting a new life with you has taken more hold than I thought. I get the Lannisters. I can somewhat predict what they’re going to do. I don’t know this woman. I don’t know how she runs her business and I don’t know her men. And I don’t want to. I don’t want to have to figure out how I need to best protect us all from them.” He squeezed her hand. “And I can’t go through another bout of getting a phone call that you’ve been shot.”

“I don’t think I could go through another bout of getting shot again.”

“So you see, you don’t have to worry.”

She nodded and then bit her lip. “What do you think then about the attack? Do you still think it was Arya? Or do you think it could be the Targaryens?”

“My gut says it’s Arya,” Jon said softly, regretfully. “I hate to say it and I hate to think it, but that’s what I think.”

Sansa fell silent, and Jon glanced at her. Her brows were pinched together. She was thinking something. “What is it?” he asked. 

“What’s our next step then? Asking the hitmen you’ve worked with?”

Jon nodded. 

“And I get to be there for those meetings too?”

He nodded again. 

“I wish I could just…I don’t know…ask her? Lay a trap and see if she falls into it and confesses? Make myself…” she trailed off, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. 

Jon’s stomach twisted in a knot. Whatever it was that she was thinking now, he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like it. “Whatever it is,” he said. “No. The answer is no.”

She looked at him in bewilderment. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”

“You’re plotting. You’ve got that same look you had when you were planning my birthday party.”

“Your _surprise_ birthday party.”

“Exactly. I didn’t know what that look meant then, and then I ended up pulling my gun out when everyone jumped out in our living room and yelled surprise.”

She burst into laughter, and though it hadn’t been funny at the time – at least not to him – it was now. Jon laughed a little too. 

“I’m just thinking,” Sansa said slowly after she’d stopped laughing, “That maybe there was a way to set myself up as bait. If she thought I was alone and she had an opportunity—”

“No.”

“Jon, just listen—”

“I said no. Sansa, you’re alive. She didn’t succeed. Given another chance, you think she’s just gonna let you get out of it alive?”

“If you were close by and at the ready—”

“Too many variables to consider. One of which being, she is a wildcard. I can’t always predict Arya, not even after all this time.”

She sighed heavily and muttered, “All right, all right.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it, Sansa. I promise.”

“She said she was happy I was alive,” Sansa said quietly. “Remember?”

“That could have been to throw us off.”

“I know, but…but can I just pretend for a minute that maybe she actually meant it?”

“For a minute. No more than that.”

She glanced at him, unable to tell if he was joking about that or not. Jon must have clued into what she was thinking for he said, “You might end up convincing yourself she had nothing to with it, if you allow yourself to believe what she said for too long. When you start doing that, you get soft. You let your guard down, and you make mistakes.”

“Like trusting her. Like trusting my own sister.”

“Yes.”

“Do you truly trust anyone, Jon?”

After a long while he finally said, “I trust you.”

She shook her head. “Not completely you don’t, and I understand why. I just wonder though – did you truly trust me before? Or is everyone a possible threat? Is everyone a possible liar?”

“You were the only one I ever truly trusted,” he said quietly. 

She winced a bit, thinking on how she had completely obliterated that trust. “We are going to have to trust each other to get through our escape,” she pointed out. 

“I trust you, Sansa, but it’s gonna take some time to get it back the way it was. I’m sure you feel the same way with me.”

She did. She nodded her agreement to that assessment. It was a little backwards perhaps, planning an escape of this magnitude when they weren’t even completely healed in their relationship. Perhaps that was just necessity dictating that all the rest could wait until they were literally away from it all. She wondered – would they make it alone together? She knew she could make it without the mob life, but could Jon? What if he realized his entire existence truly was tied completely to the mob and he decided he’d made a mistake? What if he ended up resenting her for his leaving? Would he leave her? 

“Now what are you thinking about?” he asked. 

She shook her head and forced a smile. “Nothing.”

He quirked a brow in disbelief, but she ignored the bait and instead looked out the window. _Whatever will be will be_ , she thought. And she tried to be okay with that. 

xxxxxxx

Sandor was barking at a poor male nurse when Jon and Sansa arrived in his room. He stopped yelling when he saw them, his eyes darting from Sansa to Jon, and then back to Sansa again. 

Sansa glanced over at the nurse who looked about ready to piddle on the rug. “What is it you’re trying to get him to do?” she asked. 

“Put his IV back in.”

“I’m going home now, my ride is here,” Sandor snarled. “So I don’t need your bloody IV.”

“Sir, you are not to be discharged for another couple days,” the nurse began. 

“Bugger that. I’m going,” Sandor said. “I’m fine.”

“Sandor, you almost died,” Sansa said. “You are not fine.”

“Little Bird—”

“Don’t ‘Little Bird’ me. You’re healing. If they are not ready for you to be discharged, then you stay.”

“Could you perhaps take me to see the doctor?” Jon asked the nurse. 

Sansa looked at Jon over her shoulder. “Don’t you dare take his side, Jon.”

Jon just shook his head, kissed her on the cheek, and followed the nurse out of the room. 

Sansa looked back down at Sandor. “What am I going to do with you, Patient Zero?”

“Get me the fuck out of here for starters.”

A sudden rush of emotion – of stark relief – brought tears to Sansa’s eyes, and she leaned down and hugged him, albeit carefully. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” she said in his shoulder. “When I saw you lying there…” She choked back a sob and drew in a shuddering breath. 

“Little Bird,” he said gently as he wound one arm around her back, “Take more than that to take me down. I’ve got a job to do, remember?”

She shook her head. “No, no more job.”

He laughed deep and low in his chest. “Oh no? Have I been fired then?”

She stood and grabbed some tissues from the box on the stand beside his bed. “I don’t want you getting shot again.”

He pointed at the bandage on her arm. “I don’t want you getting shot again either. Grenn make it?”

She nodded, and then sat on the bed beside him, facing him. “Tell me truly. How do you feel right now?”

He sighed and raked a hand through his thin hair. “I feel like hell.”

“Then you’re staying and the IV is going back in, and whether you like it or not you’re going to do all the doctor tells you to do.”

“Sansa, love, stop crying.”

“You’re my best friend and you almost died. I’m allowed to cry about that!”

He reached over and grabbed some more tissues and handed them to her. He watched her wipe her tears away and blow her nose in contemplative silence. “I’d do it again,” he said softly. 

She balled up the tissues in her hands. “What?”

“I’d do it again. I’d do it a thousand times as long as it meant you stayed alive.”

“Sandor—”

“I love you, Little Bird.”

She froze, stared at him in shock. 

“Judging by your reaction, you didn’t know. Or didn’t want to acknowledge it. But Jon knows. I think he’s known for a long time. Arya too. Shit, even Tormund knows. I’m sure everyone does, come to think of it. Not like I hid it all that well.”

“Jon does know,” Sansa said dumbly. 

“Ah. Told you, did he?” She nodded. “Did you believe him?” She shook her head. “Why’s that?”

“You never said anything.”

“When do you suppose would have been a good time? When you were eighteen and barely grown, or when you were falling in love with Jon? Besides, it wouldn’t have been respectful of your father. Plus, I wouldn’t saddle you to an old dog like me.”

Her eyes welled up in tears again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. 

“For what? For not loving me back?”

“I do love you—”

“I know you do, Little Bird. Just not that way. Your heart has always been Jon’s and always will be his. I get it. I know it. I don’t expect anything from you. It’s just when you nearly kick it, all the things you were holding back don’t seem so important to hold back anymore. Maybe in telling you I love you, I can begin to move on from it. Or maybe it’s just that I’m so goddamned relieved that you’re sitting here across from me and I can’t keep it in. Whatever the reason is for telling you, I just had to get it out of me, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you have to do about it. You got me?”

She nodded. 

“Sandor, I’ll thank you to stop making my wife cry.”

Sansa started at the sound of Jon’s voice and she whipped her head to look his way. How much, she wondered, had he heard? She looked at Sandor, her heart rapidly thumping in her chest. Sandor looked unconcerned. 

“What the consensus then?” Sandor asked. “You manage to get me home?”

Jon sighed. “No—”

“Bloody fucking hell, Jon!” Sandor exclaimed in frustration. 

Jon held up his hand and shut the door to Sandor’s room behind him. He moved forward and stood beside Sansa. “Listen, Patient Zero,” Jon said and Sandor rolled his eyes. “We need you well. We’re in the middle of an investigation into who attacked that night.”

Sandor frowned. “You don’t know yet? You see Tyrion?”

“It wasn’t them,” Jon said with a sigh. 

“It’s Arya then, ain’t it?” Sandor asked. 

“Could be,” Sansa said. “But there is another mob family in town too, so we’ve learned.”

Sandor slumped back against the bed. “Fucking hell.”

“Exactly,” Sansa drawled. 

“So you need all the rest you can get, Sandor,” Jon said, “Because, per the request of my wife, after this attack is all cleared up, you’ve got a decision to make.”

Sandor’s brow furrowed. “And that would be?”

“If you’re going to leave the mob with Sansa and I or not.”


	40. Chapter 40

Sandor gaped at Jon and Sansa. Jon looked over at Sansa and grinned at her. "Never thought I could make Sandor speechless."

"Don't get used to it," Sandor grumbled. 

"And he's back," Jon said. 

Sansa wiped a few stray tears away and looked up at her husband. "How long will he have to stay in here?"

"Another few days," Jon said. "But then as long as we promise he'll be well attended, he can go home."

"You're gonna really do it?" Sandor asked Jon. "You're gonna leave with her?"

"I'm assuming ‘her’ is me," Sansa murmured. 

Sandor looked at her pointedly and she grinned at him. 

"So, you convinced him to leave?" Sandor asked Sansa. 

"It didn't take a lot of convincing," Jon said as he came over to stand beside Sansa. 

Sansa twisted her mouth to the side and looked up at Jon, squinting. "Wellll...."

He rolled his eyes. "Okay, it took some convincing, but after you were shot it made the decision a hell of a lot easier."

"Holy hell," Sandor muttered. 

"So, you're going to come with us," Sansa said cheerfully to Sandor. 

Sandor pursed his lips together and looked at her. He appeared a bit surly. "And do what, Little Bird? Guard you both?"

Sansa frowned. "Of course not. You can do whatever you want."

"I'm not trained for anything."

"Neither is Jon, really," Sansa pointed out. "But you could both figure it out. I mean, he has management training at best. You have...you could be a bouncer. Or a security guard. You could become a police officer--"

"Do something in the public eye like that where I could get caught by one of our enemies?"

Sansa frowned. "Well, no, but hopefully you won't get caught--"

"I don't know, Little Bird."

"I don't understand, “Jon said. “You were willing to leave to get Sansa away from me, but now that you have the actual opportunity to do so, you are hesitant to take it?” 

Sandor looked at Sansa. “You told him?”

Sansa looked down guiltily, and then back up. “It kind of came out while I was freaking out about getting shot…you getting shot, Grenn getting shot.”

Sandor looked over at Jon, eyes narrowed. “You know how I feel about her. You’ve known for a while. And you’re okay with this?”

Jon stuffed his hands in the pockets of his pants. “Listen, it’s not like I’m thrilled that you’re in love with my wife.”

“This is awkward,” Sansa muttered. They both ignored her. 

“However,” Jon continued. “You’ve never made a pass at her, nor do I think you will.” 

“You’re right,” Sandor said, lifting his chin. “I wouldn’t.”

“And you saved her life,” Jon said. He placed a hand on Sansa’s shoulder and squeezed. “You kept her from being taken from me.”

“And Grenn,” Sandor said. 

“You’ve been her guard since she was seventeen,” Jon said. “Sansa trusts you with her life, and so do I. You mean something to her, and when she asked me if we could take you I won’t lie – I was jealous. I wanted to say no.”

Sandor looked at Sansa in awe. “You’re the one who wanted me to come?”

Sansa frowned. “Well, of course. Who else?”

“I thought maybe Jon would want me to come only to protect you both until it was certain we were safe,” Sandor murmured. 

Sansa shook her head. “No. We leave we’re off mob duty. That means you’re off guard duty.”

“Sansa, there are still risks to consider,” Jon reminded her. “We don’t leave and poof – we don’t worry about being tracked.”

“Ah, there it is. The real reason hubby agreed,” Sandor said. 

“Now hold on a goddamned minute,” Jon said, clearly annoyed.

“What he means,” Sansa said, looking pointedly at Jon, “Is that we three will look out for each other. You’re not going to be on guard duty, Sandor. I’m not asking you to leave one dangerous situation only to put you in another.”

“No offense, Little Bird, but you kind of are. Whether I guard you and Jon or not, leaving the mob is a death sentence. If we were caught…”

“If,” Sansa said. “Remember that I was only found by accident. Besides, you were willing to do it when you thought I might need to leave again.”

“And God knows what a death sentence that would have been,” Jon drawled. 

“Jon,” Sansa scolded. 

Sandor chuckled. “It’s not like he’s lying, Little Bird. Jon would kill any man who stood in the way of getting to you.”

“Well, no one is standing in the way of me,” Sansa said and darted a look at her husband. She looked at Sandor. “Are you in or out?”

Sandor sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t…You know, I think in the back of my head when I told you I’d take you away to keep you safe, I knew it wouldn’t happen. I knew you two would eventually get it right. I didn’t have to think too much about what I would do once out of the business, and actually my job wouldn’t have changed. I would have been protecting you still. Now though…now you’re asking me to really think about leaving. To go out into the world and be all respectable.”

“Well, I mean, let’s not go overboard,” Sansa said. “You’re still Sandor.” She grinned at him and he laughed. 

“That I am, Little Bird,” he said. “That I am.”

“So, will you leave with us?” Sansa asked. 

He sighed and looked at her, a soft smile on his lips. “You know I’ve always had a hard time saying no to you.”

“I believe that’s my line,” Jon said dryly. 

“So then yes?” Sansa asked and clapped her hands together excitedly. Sandor nodded, still looking a bit squeamish about it. And yet hopeful too. 

Jon tamped down his jealousy as best he could as he watched Sansa hug Sandor – mindful, of course, of his injuries. She wasn’t in love with Sandor, he told himself. _She’s in love with me._

When she straightened and came over to him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, settling against his chest. Jon wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the top of her head. He knew this hug. It was the ‘I am happy. I feel safe with you, and I just want to burrow into you’ hug. 

Jon wanted to burrow into her too. Sansa moved to his side, her arm around him, as they both faced Sandor. Jon cleared his throat. “You need to get well. We’ve got some time before we can actually leave. First, I need to find out who was behind the shooting that night.”

“Your sister-in-law,” Sandor said matter-of-factly. 

Jon felt Sansa tense and he tightened his hand around her waist. “We’re ruling out everything else first before we start making accusations,” Jon said. 

“Then you better hurry the fuck up before that bitch strikes again, because trust me, she will,” Sandor said. 

“I’ve been sticking to Jon’s side like glue,” Sansa told Sandor. “She hasn’t had the chance to get me alone.”

Sandor pursed his lips together and shook his head. “Not sure that will entirely stop her. She’s out for blood. Has been since you were discovered alive.”

Sansa shifted from one foot to another and frowned. “I’m going to get a nurse and get those tubes back in you,” she said and beat a hasty retreat. 

“She doesn’t want to listen,” Sandor murmured. “Even as bad as Arya has treated her, and Sansa still wants her sister to just love her.”

“You know how Sansa is,” Jon sighed. 

“Yeah, that big heart of hers.” Sandor narrowed his eyes. “You think Arya did it?”

Jon sighed and nodded. 

“What are you gonna do about it then?” Sandor asked. 

“Sansa wants me to think of alternatives to…”

“To killing her.”

“Yes.”

Sandor snorted. “There isn’t an alternative. Arya tried to have your woman killed. You can’t let her get away with that.”

“I know.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

“I can’t just outright kill her without making sure she’s the one, Sandor,” Jon said tetchily. 

“Well, Jon, look at it this way. If you know she did it, and knowing how your gut is rarely wrong, then the way I see it, it’s kill or be killed. And by killed, I mean Sansa.”

“Sandor, Jesus fucking Christ,” Jon snapped. “Don’t—just don’t talk about that, all right?”

“You think I like the prospect any better?”

Jon was about to reply when his phone buzzed in his pocket. With a frown, he pulled his phone out and read the text from Grenn that had just come in: _Gendry Waters just found dead on the side of the road._

“Fuck!” Jon shouted. 

“What? What is it?” Sandor asked, alarmed. 

“Gendry Waters – you know that hitman I hired sometimes? The one that I thought had a bit of a crush on Arya?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s dead.”

Sandor sucked in a breath. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That Arya hired him to kill Sansa, and because he failed and because she knows I won’t rest until I figure out who did it, she killed him? Yes.”

“Goddammit, I wish I wasn’t in this goddamn bed,” Sandor muttered. 

“I can take care of Sansa,” Jon informed him. “I’m gonna take her to the safe house. To the one only you and I know about.”

Sandor nodded. “Good plan. Put Edd on her. Or Yoren.”

Just then Sansa came bursting into the room with a nurse in tow. “If you can put extra tubes with extra medicine in them, that’d be great,” Sansa said. “We need him up and at ‘em.”

“We can’t actually do that,” the nurse said. 

Sansa shrugged and looked at Sandor with a smile. “Well, I tried.” When she saw the look on his face her smile fell. “What? What is it? Did you change your mind?”

“No, Little Bird,” Sandor said softly. 

“Sansa, sweetheart, we need to go,” Jon said. “I got some news. We’ll talk in the car, okay?”

“Does it involve you having to go somewhere I’m not going like?” she asked worriedly. 

“Potentially, yes.”

“Jon—”

“Come on, love. We’ve got to go.”

Jon pulled her with him to the door. Sansa managed a quick goodbye to Sandor who yelled out, “Stay safe and listen to him, Sansa!”

“What’s going on?” Sansa hissed as they marched down the hall to the elevator. 

“One of the hitmen I’ve used, Gendry Waters, is dead. Grenn just sent me a message.”

Her eyes went wide. “The one you thought had a thing for Arya?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she…I mean she knows we’re investigating…do you think she…hired him?”

“I’m pretty positive.”

“And now she’s…”

“Killed him.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked. 

“Not we. You. You’re going to a safe house.”

“A safe house? Jon, Arya knows about our safe houses.”

“Not about this one.”

They stopped in front of the elevator and Jon pushed the button while Sansa gaped at him. “There’s a safe house that no one knows about?”

“I know about it. Sandor knows about it. Now you know about it,” he said nonchalantly. “I had it set up a long time ago. It was to only be used for emergencies. This is an emergency.”

“Where is it?” she asked, utterly baffled. 

The elevator dinged open, and they both stepped on. Thankfully, no one was inside with them. 

“It’s the next town over, it’s in the middle of nowhere. Not even a GPS can find it.”

“Wow,” Sansa breathed. 

“We’re going to go home first so you can pack a few things.”

“What if Arya is there?”

“She won’t be. She’ll be at Joe’s with Tormund unloading the new guns. I’ll get Yoren to go with you. I’ll take Edd and Qhorin with me, then I’m going to confront Arya and Tormund.”

Sansa shook her head. “No, Jon. No. If she did this—”

“She _did_ , Sansa” Jon said. “I know it.”

“She could kill you. Please, please don’t do this. Send someone else.” She started to cry. “Jon, please. I don’t want you to die. We just started making plans and getting back on track. I can’t lose you now.”

Jon pulled her into his arms and held her tightly, pressing his lips to the top her head. Any jealousy, any doubts he had about Sansa’s feelings for Sandor were obliterated in that moment. “You won’t, Sansa, you won’t lose me. I’m going to be safe. I’m going to have backup. Just trust me to take care of this.”

“It has nothing to do with trust!” she exclaimed. “It has to do with loving you and not wanting you to die on me!”

Jon took her face in his hands and looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere, Sansa. I promise.”

But she didn’t believe him. He could tell. She was worried. She shook from the force of it. The elevator doors dinged open, and Jon led an unsteady Sansa out of the building and to the car. He hated that he was putting her through this. It never got easy.

“This is the last bit of business to be finished,” Jon said as he drove them home. Sansa had gone still and quiet, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I promise it will be all right. I promise that I will be seeing you tonight.”

She didn’t say anything, just nodded numbly. 

When they got to the house, Jon walked with her to the door, his arm around her waist, holding her close. He murmured to her. How he loved her. How happy they were going to be in their new life. How they’d start making plans that night. 

When they got into the kitchen, it was Sansa that saw Tormund and Grenn’s bodies on the floor first. She opened her mouth as if to scream, but no sound came out. 

It was Jon, though, who saw Arya. She was sitting at the kitchen table, gun in hand and pointed at them. “Well, it’s about fucking time,” she said.


	41. Chapter 41

Jon shoved Sansa behind him and Sansa gripped his arm with one hand, and then his hand with the other. She blinked at Arya, not comprehending really what she was seeing and what was happening. It was as if some part of her brain had shut off that kept her from understanding. 

There were dead bodies. Two of them. And on the kitchen floor. They were bleeding out on the white tile floor. 

Arya was sitting with a gun in her hand, poised at her and Jon. 

Dead bodies. 

Arya. 

Gun. 

“What did you do?” Sansa whispered. 

“What does it look like I did?” Arya drawled. “That’s Sansa, asking the stupid questions.”

“Arya, put the gun down,” Jon said commandingly. “Let’s talk about this.”

Arya jumped to her feet and stormed over to Jon, pointing the gun at him. Sansa let go of his arm and his hand and leapt in front of him. “No!” she shouted. 

“Sansa, no,” Jon growled and tried to shove her back behind him. 

“No, no, let her stay…” Arya said and put the gun to Sansa’s forehead. “Right. There.” She pressed the barrel of the gun hard against Sansa’s head until Sansa winced from the pain. Arya laughed and let the gun fall to her side. “Wuss.”

Jon again tried to move her, but Arya lifted the gun again and arched her brow. “What did I say? She stays right there.”

“Why did you kill them?” Sansa asked quietly. 

“Because they figured it out,” Arya said simply. “They figured it out and went right to Jon to tell him, and I couldn’t let them get in my way of what it is I wanted to do.”

“Do you plan to kill both of us?” Sansa asked. 

“No. Well…I don’t know yet. I do know that I want to make him watch you die.”

“No,” Jon said “Arya—”

“I’m the one with the gun so I’d shut the fuck up if I were you, Jon,” Arya said. 

“You hired Gendry to…kill me?” Sansa asked, feeling tears spring to her eyes. She was going to die. She knew it. She was going to die by the hand of her sister right here in the kitchen. 

“And Sandor. Jesus, that lapdog of yours is hard to get rid of. I was hoping he'd die, but no. He's still infuriatingly alive. You see, this is why I had to kill Gendry. He fucked it all up out of some sense of honor to you, Jon. He wanted to do the job for me, yet he didn't really _want_ to. So he failed. And I couldn't let that go.”

“Tormund wasn’t helping you?” Jon asked and shifted on his feet a little to the left. 

“At first he wanted to figure out a way to scare Sansa away again. Didn’t trust her, wanted to get you away from her and her away from us…but then he had a change of heart and tried to convince me to back off. I didn’t.” Arya shrugged. “I called Gendry and set it all up. I even fucked him.” She looked hard at Jon and then scowled. “Nothing? Not even a flinch?”

“What do you expect me to do, Arya?” Jon asked calmly. 

“Not what I expect…what I want,” she said softly. “It doesn’t bother you that I fucked him?”

Jon didn’t say anything, which was all the answer Arya needed. She let out a roar. “Why is it always her?” she demanded. “Why is she the favorite? The one that everyone protects? She’s useless, Jon. I’m the one that’s had your back. My father’s back, Robb’s back. I was there for all of you in a fight and yet she’s the favorite!”

“I’m not the favorite,” Sansa murmured. “Is that what this has all been about?”

“Partly,” Arya said with a shrug. “But mostly him. You took him from me.”

“I didn’t take him away from you, Arya,” Sansa said. 

“Yes, you did!” Arya shouted and stormed back into her face. “You batted your lashes, you flashed him your smiles, and you made him fall in love with you. He should have been mine, Sansa, but you couldn’t let me have anything. You had Mom and Dad wrapped around your little finger, even Robb. But then you had to go and take the one thing I wanted most.”

“Sansa didn’t make me do anything, Arya,” Jon said. “The heart wants what it wants. You can’t make someone fall in love with you. They either do or they don’t. Like Gendry. He loved you. But you didn’t love him. Do you think you made him fall in love with you?”

Arya ignored him, but Sansa noticed that while he spoke, he’d shifted again. A little further left. What exactly was he up to?

“I just don’t understand,” Arya murmured and raked a hand through her already knotted hair. “She’s gotten everything she’s wanted all our lives when I’m the one that made sacrifices. I’m the one that fought beside you…you and I are the ones with the most in common, Jon. What is it about her that made you want to be with her? She doesn’t know how to fight, she knows nothing about the business, and she can’t even shoot a gun properly. The only thing she’s ever done that was right was make you think she was dead and even then…EVEN THEN you still couldn’t LET HER GO!”

“Why didn’t you tell me how you felt about him, Arya?” Sansa asked, letting the tears spill down her cheeks. She realized that it wasn’t just fear that was making her cry, but Arya and her pain. The fact that her sister was lost to her. Completely and utterly lost to her. She truly had hated Sansa all her life and all because she was jealous. Jealous even before Jon was someone to be jealous over. 

“What – would you have stepped aside?” Arya asked, and then snorted. “Another thing that would have made you oh so perfect to everyone. How big of you, Sansa! How kind! You stepped aside for your ugly little sister.”

“No, that’s not what anyone would have thought,” Sansa said adamantly. “Is it so hard to believe that I would want to see you happy?”

“No, it’s not. But it makes me hate you more. Selfless perfect beautiful Sansa.”

“I’m not selfless. I’m not perfect. Far from it.”

“I notice you didn’t say you aren’t beautiful.” Arya’s laugh was dark. She lifted her gun again. “Would you let me have him now if I asked?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Sansa said softly, sadly. “Not after what you’ve done.”

“Well I’ve got all the power now, you see,” Arya said and waved her gun. “So, I think he’ll do what I say.” 

Sansa heard Jon beside her move. The next thing she knew she was being pushed away and Jon was aiming his gun at Arya. Ah. So that’s what he’d been doing. Trying to get in a better position to push her out of the way and grab his gun from the back of his pants. 

Instead of aiming her gun at Jon though, Arya aimed it at Sansa and shot the spot between Sansa’s legs. Sansa let out a shout. 

“Think about what you’re doing, Jon, because I’ve been injured before and I’ve still managed to take someone down. You know this,” Arya said. 

Sansa swallowed hard, frozen momentarily in place. 

“If you kill her you’ll never have me,” Jon told Arya. “I’ll kill myself if you kill her. If you let her live and let her go, however, I’ll give you a go.”

Arya stared at him, looking at him in disbelief. Sansa took a step closer to her. Then Arya shot him in the thigh. 

“Jon!” Sansa screamed. 

The leg that’d had been shot gave out and he grunted as he landed hard on the tile on his knee. Arya used his pain and distraction to kick the gun from his hand. It skittered between Arya’s legs. 

Sansa lunged for Arya, tackling her by the waist and knocking her to the floor. Her gun slid several feet away and Arya kicked and hit at Sansa, trying to get her off. Sansa punched her in the face. “Can’t fight, huh?” she yelled at Arya, and then punched her again. “Can’t punch?”

“Sansa!” Jon roared. 

“I’m going to kill you!” Arya screamed at her and managed to kick Sansa off of her. She went scrambling for the gun, but so had Jon. Jon smacked Arya away and Sansa grabbed Arya’s hair and pulled hard. Arya screamed and clawed Sansa on the side of her face. Then she got her in the stomach with her knee and knocked the wind out of Sansa. 

Momentarily halted, Sansa doubled over. But when she saw Jon and Arya now wrestling with the gun he’d managed to grab, then heard Jon cry out as Arya kicked him in the wound she’d created, Sansa pushed through the fact that she was gasping for air and scrambled for the other gun. 

She got it and climbed to her feet, panting and heart racing with worry for Jon, she stood over them. She’d taken shooting lessons before. Both with her father and in Wales. She hadn’t done it in a long time though, and she worried about hitting Jon accidently. 

So, she went for a spot on Arya that was openly visible and in range. Her calf. 

Arya screamed and stopped moving, but would not relinquish hold of the gun. Neither would Jon. 

“I’m going to kill you both!” Arya shouted. 

They rolled onto their sides, the gun in between them, Jon’s hand over her wrist, trying to get it out of her hands by smacking her hand repeatedly down on the tile. 

“I’m going to blow your fucking brains out,” Arya hissed at him and kicked him in his wound again with her good leg. 

Jon let go of her wrist and rolled onto his back, clearly lost in pain. 

Arya’s look was triumphant as she took hold of the gun firmly and started to aim at him. 

Sansa shot her in the head. 

Or at least she tried to anyway. She got her in the neck. However, it appeared to be the equivalent of slitting her throat because blood began to gush from the wound and onto the floor. Arya gurgled in her blood. 

Sansa began to sob and Jon, Jon managed to sit up, panting. “Sansa,” he croaked. 

Sansa dropped the gun and fell to her knees. She crawled over to him. He gathered her in his arms as best he could and they clung to one another, Sansa sobbing, and Jon silently crying while Arya died beside them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could see the fight scene in my head, and I sure hope that translated onto the page!


	42. Chapter 42

Sansa shut down. It was the only way to explain how mute she'd gone, and the blank look on her face. After Jon had called in the cleaners and the doctor on their payroll to tend to his leg, he called for a meeting with his now remaining men at a later time. 

Sansa went through the motions of helping him peel off his bloody clothes and shower. She bore it like a trooper, as though she had not missed all those years of tending to him when he'd been injured. Thankfully, those had been very few and very far between, but still. He wanted to be there for her, but needed tending to. He'd been shot in the leg before, so he knew it would suck for a while, and he'd have to use a crutch. 

The doctor came and Sansa listened intently along with Jon to what needed to be done. The wound was cleaned, he was given antibiotics, and that was that

While the cleaners cleaned, Sansa stuffed their bloody clothes in a bag and handed them off to the cleaners. She said not a word through the whole thing. 

This was hard, losing Arya.

Jon had resigned himself to the idea of what he'd have to do if Arya was behind the attack. Shit, he'd already been thinking he would have to end Arya if she'd succeeded in driving a wedge between he and Sansa - not that he would ever tell Sansa that.

Despite what he thought he would have to do, there was nothing to really prepare Jon for the reality of it.

Arya was dead.

Sansa had killed her.

Sansa had killed her to save him.

Arya, who had been like a sister to him, who had had his back, who was beside him through some pretty horrific shit, was dead. She was his family. And now she was gone.

There were tears when she sat down on the bed while they waited for the cleaners to finish. Sansa clung to him and Jon clung right back. This was not what she'd wanted, and he didn't know how to make it better. How to take away what she'd done. It wasn't like he could say 'Thank you for not letting her kill me'. Not now at least. He was at a complete loss, and wasn't that the odd thing? He, who had killed before, could not think of what to say to comfort his wife.

Yet Jon had never killed a relative before. This was different.

Fuck. This was hard.

All of this was just such a fucking goddamned mess. A fucking goddamned waste. 

Jon wanted to go to his knees and beg Sansa to forgive him for….

_Yeah, Jon. For what?_

For dragging her back home. 

If he’d never gone to get her in Wales and bring her back in and just let her live her life there, then none of this would have happened. Arya wouldn’t have felt threatened by Sansa’s presence. She wouldn’t have tried to kill her own sister. 

“Hey,” Jon said finally. Her hair was wet, her face scrubbed clean and rimmed with red, but she was here with him and they were safe. For the most part anyway. 

Her gaze flickered to him. 

He opened his mouth to tell her that if she hadn’t killed Arya, she would have killed them both. That it was kill or be killed, but that sort of felt like when someone said ‘At least you have your health’ after you just told them how shitty things were in your life. It wasn’t as if you ever cared in that moment that you were healthy when everything else was falling to shit. 

“What?” Sansa asked softly. 

He shook his head, gripping her hands in his on her lap. “Nothing.”

She frowned and looked at him oddly, but didn’t press him. “I want to see my mother.”

Jon blinked. “What?”

“I want to see my mother. I want – I need to tell her that…” Her eyes welled up in tears. “That her daughter is dead.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jon said. “It won’t do her any good to tell her that.”

“I need to tell her,” Sansa insisted. 

Jon studied her for a long while, her blue eyes sparkling from unshed tears. “Why do you need to tell her? Do you want to tell her how she died? Is that your intent?”

She nodded and blinked, causing the tears to fall down her cheeks. 

“No, you can’t do that,” Jon told her. “It would send her over the edge and if she told someone—”

“She’s nuts. She’s locked up. Who is she going to tell that would believe her?”

He looked at her searchingly. “Sansa, are you looking for absolution?”

She shrugged a shoulder. 

“Because you know she won’t be able to give you that. Your mother is gone, Sansa. She has been taken by grief and you telling her Arya is dead and by your hand will only add to it. You don’t…” He sighed, trying to choose his words carefully. “You don’t need absolution.”

“Have you ever looked for it when you killed someone?” she asked. 

“Yes. From you.”

She nodded. “I remember. I listened to your sins in this bedroom.”

“Yes. You can tell me yours now. That’s how this works.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Telling your mother and watching her lose her shit would make it enough?”

Sansa pulled her hands from his and stood up. She walked away from him, wringing her hands. “She has a right to know her daughter is dead.”

Jon stood on one foot and faced her. “Do you want to be responsible for sending her to the deep end? She barely held on when she thought you were dead. I’m afraid you’ll lose her completely if you tell her this, Sansa.” 

She looked at him, hands still being wrung before her, and tears spilling down her cheeks. “I feel dirty. I feel like there aren’t enough showers in the world to wash this off me.”

“There aren’t,” Jon said matter-of-factly. 

“If you’re trying to make me feel better, you’re really sucking at it.”

“You’re always going to feel it.”

“What the _fuck_ , Jon?!”

“Sweetheart, I’m being honest with you.”

“Lie to me instead, please. Tell me that the guilt will go away. That I’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll be like this never happened. Tell me that it won’t sit on my chest like a weight…like a stone…that I won’t feel like she’s here still, haunting me.”

Jon hobbled over to her and tucked some hair behind her ear. “What you are feeling will lessen, but it will never truly go away. No matter how many times I’ve told myself that I did what I had to do for the good of the business, for my men, and to protect you, the stain of taking another human life never truly goes away. It stays with you. You carry it with you, but with time it doesn’t feel like the crushing weight it does now.”

“Even if the someone I killed was my sister?” Sansa croaked. 

Jon cupped her face in his hands and forced her look at him. “She was going to kill us, Sansa. First me and then you.”

She nodded. “I know, I know, and I think –I think that’s what hurts the most. I would do it again. I would do it again to save you. There was just…no question. No deliberation. She was going to kill you and I reacted and I….” She moved away from him and began wringing her hands again. “What would my father say? What would he have done? Would have hate me? Would he understand? If my mother was in her right mind, would she?”

“I’d like to think that Ned would have understood. Sansa, she was on a rampage. She killed Grenn and Tormund. She attempted to kill you and Sandor already once. I don’t think your father himself could have done it, but I don’t think he would have disowned you or held it against you what you had to do to survive.”

She looked unconvinced, but Jon understood that. 

“I’m as weak as she said I was, aren’t I?” she asked softly. 

He looked at her incredulously. “How can you even say that?”

She looked at him. “She wouldn’t have thought twice if the roles were reversed. She would have felt no remorse—”

“You don’t know that. If the roles were reversed, you don’t know that at all. If things were different, if you were her and she was you, she wouldn’t have been filled with such hate. Sansa, you’re not a hateful person. You’re not vengeful. You are none of the things that Arya was made up of, and if the roles were reversed, she wouldn’t have been made up of those things either. If you didn’t feel what you’re feeling right now I would worry that something was wrong with you.”

There was a knock at the door and Jon hobbled across the room to open it. It was the cleaner. He was done. Jon signaled for Sansa to hold on, grabbed his long forgotten crutch now leaning against their bureau and left the room, closing the door behind him. 

Jon walked the cleaner out of the house to his van, paid him, and thanked him profusely. He stayed in the driveway for a long while after listening to the water lap softly against the shore in the distance, to the birds chirping in the distance. He looked at the house, knowing that when he stepped into the kitchen it would be pristine. No trace that anything had happened there. 

He’d have his meeting. He’d break the news to his men. Life, until he and Sansa left, would go on as it always did. Life went on. Time marched on. Even when you thought it should stop and acknowledge the thing that just changed your life forever. 

xxxxxxxxx

It took some convincing, but when Sansa pointed out that their major threat had been Arya all this time, Jon let her go visit Sandor. Sure he made her call him when she got to the hospital, and wanted her to call when she was leaving, but it was something. She wished she could say it felt like some kind of win, but nothing felt like a win at the moment. All she seemed to be able to do was oscillate between nearing a panic attack over what she’d done, and absolutely nothing. 

Not that the nothing was indeed nothing. It was an emptiness inside her that felt like a yawning abyss. It felt like her mind was attempting to protect herself from sinking into something that was a bit too close to what her mother was going through. Suffice it to say, it was rather unnerving. 

Sandor, surprised and yet happy to see her for the second time that day, only had to look at her face to know something was up. “What happened?” he asked straight away. 

And, when Sansa was sure they were alone, it all came tumbling out. By the time she was done, she sat hunched over, sobbing yet again, while Sandor sat still. So still, Sansa wasn’t even sure he was breathing. 

When she looked at him, taking the tissues he handed her from the box next to his bed, he said simply, “I’m sorry, Little Bird. Christ, I’m so sorry you had to do that.”

“Am I a horrible person?” she asked. “Am I murderer now?”

He shook his head slowly. “No. You’re a survivor.”

“I feel awful.”

“And you’re going to for a while.”

“Jesus, you and Jon both with the no comfort at all,” she muttered. 

“We’ve been through it, Little Bird. We know what we’re talking about.”

“She was my sister, Sandor.”

“And she was fucking batshit crazy. You didn’t just save Jon and yourself, you know.”

She looked at him in confusion. “No, I don’t know. Explain.”

“You don’t think she would have stopped there, do you? I mean, she would have killed the boss and his wife. She killed Tormund and Grenn too. She would have known the others would be coming for her because there was no way to cover that all up as an accident, or even pin it on the Lannisters. Not this time. I’ve no doubt in my mind she would have gone on a rampage. Probably would have picked them all off one by one as they came through the door.”

It made sense in a weird way. Even if Arya had come up with some cockamamie story about how all of them had ended up dead, she wouldn’t have been able to sustain it. Everyone knew how she felt about Jon. They’d all witnessed her being awful and none too pleased that Sansa was back. She would have massacred them all to save herself….as anyone looking down the barrel of a gun would have. 

This though, this helped. It eased the guilt. About a centimeter’s worth, but it was a starting point. 

“Thank you,” Sansa said. “For thinking of that part.”

Sandor shrugged. “Jon no doubt thought it too, but he’s in cleanup mode right now. And probably wondering how he’s going to manage getting us all out of dodge.”

“He wants to go to the Quiet Isle after tonight and wait for you to get better before we go,” Sansa murmured, picking at the thin blanket on Sandor’s bed. 

Her head snapped up and she looked at him with wide eyes. “What if we don’t go? What if we waited until you were out and I said I wanted to go to get away and he ‘sent’ you with me? Then, you and I could prepare everything for our departure while he’s here, pretending to be worried about me.”

“I don’t think Jon has to really stretch very far to pretend to be worried about you,” Sandor drawled. 

Sansa shot him a look. “Anyway, he could make a big stink about trying to get me to come home, and then he’ll tell everyone I refuse, so he comes to get me and then we go.”

Sandor nodded thoughtfully. “All right, Little Bird, let’s break this down from the beginning because honestly, this just might work.”


	43. Chapter 43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a short one, but hey, I made it just under two months so that's something, right?
> 
> I am thinking maybe a couple more chapters. Time to end this puppy.

When Sansa returned home, feeling that at least now she had a mission, something else to focus on so she could distract herself from having murdered her sister, she found Jon sitting alone in his leather chair in the living room, nursing a Scotch. 

“Should you be drinking that while on antibiotics?” she asked as she flung her purse on the couch and then sat down on it, facing her husband. 

“A little bit won’t hurt,” he said. “How’s Sandor?”

She leaned forward and brushed his knee with her fingers. “Is anyone here?”

“All gone.”

“How’d it go?”

Jon sighed heavily. “As well as can be expected. They’re all in shock.”

Sansa got up and sat down on the arm of the chair. She leaned over and rested her cheek against the top of his head. “How are you?” she asked softly. 

Jon put his glass down on the end table next to him and then grabbed her hand and laced their fingers together. “I’m better now that you’re here,” he said. 

“Did you want me to stay?”

“It would have been nice if you did, but I knew you had to get away from having to relive it all again.”

“Thank you for understanding.” She sighed. “Though I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you to have to tell them. I’m sorry, Jon. I should have stayed.”

“If I had asked would you have?”

“Yes,” she said and meant it. 

He nodded. “Did you have a nice visit with Sandor?”

“We have a plan,” she said and shifted so she could look down at him. 

Jon looked up at her. “Oh?”

“Well, you know how you want us to go to the Quiet Isle and then leave from there once Sandor is ready?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. 

“Well, here’s what we came up with. So, let’s say we stay here until Sandor is ready to be discharged. While we plan for our new life behind the scenes, to everyone else we show that Arya’s death has taken its toll. You could mention to Edd or something that we’ve hit a rough patch—”

“Another one?”

“Yes. Because they’d buy it. After what I did in leaving you and after Arya…it wouldn’t be a stretch.”

“Go on.”

“When Sandor came home, he and I could go to the Quiet Isle alone, but you’re not happy about it. You want to give me my space, but you are afraid I’ll take off or something again. Maybe even that you know how Sandor feels about me and you’re not okay with me being alone with him.”

“I take it that’s when I leave and join you at the Quiet Isle.”

“Yes!” she said. “And then we leave.”

He said nothing, just looked down at his drink, took a sip, and then stared off a bit.

“Okay, what are you thinking?” Sansa asked. “You hate the idea.”

“No, I don’t hate it. I’m just not particularly fond of aspect of it. Plus, my concern is that despite the fact that my men are sickened by what she did to Tormund and Grenn, and what she attempted to do to me, and even though they are thankful you saved my life, I worry they won’t take any further discord between us well. Especially if they think you and Sandor could be having an affair.”

“So, then let’s modify the plan.”

“How about you get away because you need a break. You need to get your head on straight, and I send Sandor to keep an eye on you and to recoup. I wait a few days, and when it doesn’t look like you’re coming home, I join you. They would think nothing of me joining you. They might worry if there is a fight between us though.”

She smiled. “So much easier than what Sandor and I had planned.”

“You came up with the bare bones, I just helped tweak it.”

“We make a good team,” she said softly. 

“I would hope so,” he said. “You’re stuck with me from here on out. You know that, right?”

“I’m not going to lie, Jon. I had the thought tonight that I wasn’t sure if losing Arya was something we could survive.”

He looked alarmed. “What do you mean? Why?”

“Because I know how much she meant to you. I know how she was like a sister to you. I kept thinking that if I hadn’t left she wouldn’t have tried to sleep with you. If that hadn’t happened and you hadn’t rebuffed her because you believed I was alive she wouldn’t have had time for all the hatred she already had for me to grow to such epic proportions. And then I was found and came home and I think whatever hope she had that maybe in time you’d come around was completely gone then. It was better for her for me to not be here.”

“Stop, Sansa. She could have snapped even if you had never left.”

“It’s always after someone dies that you think about the events that led to their death. I think it’s just human nature to wonder how things might have turned out had something been done differently. Like, I wonder if I had been more involved like she was or hadn’t been so interested in doing all the girly things she hated if she would have loved me.”

“Sansa. _Stop_. None of those things were things you could control.”

“Maybe I couldn’t have controlled how she felt about me when we were younger, but I can’t help but think that I set this all in motion by leaving.”

“You didn’t. I assure you, you didn’t.”

“How can you be so sure?” she demanded. 

“Because I knew Arya. She was always angry. She was always like a pot on the stove with the lid on and the water boiling underneath. You didn’t know when she was going to blow.”

“Maybe if I had tried harder—”

“Sansa, you’re going to drive yourself mad thinking this way!”

She heaved a sigh and slid off the arm rest. “I can’t help it!” she exclaimed and threw up her arms. 

“You’re so determined to think of what you did being the cause of what she did. What about me? What if I had fallen in love with her instead of you? Would she have found something else to cause her to snap? What if I had fucked her and given her a chance and it hadn’t worked out? Would she have decided not to make you the target, but me instead? What if you had never been found and I settled down with someone else? Would she have snapped then?”

“Let me take responsibility for what I did, Jon. For how I left you.”

“You have taken responsibility for it, Sansa. But that is not what caused Arya’s death.”

“No, me pulling the trigger is what caused her death.”

“She would have killed you. She would have killed me. And she might not have stopped there.”

“That’s what Sandor said too.”

“The great and wise Sandor spoke, and you didn’t listen?” 

Sansa narrowed her eyes at him. “You can’t possibly still be jealous of him.”

He shrugged a shoulder. 

“After what I did today to save you?”

He sighed. “You’re right.”

“I think you should practice repeating ‘Sansa is right’ on a regular basis, like a mantra. Maybe leave yourself post-its to remind you of it.”

He chuckled. “Don’t push your luck.” He held out his hand. “Come here, sweetheart.”

Sansa came over and sat back down on the arm rest with a sigh. “One day it won’t feel like this weight pressing down on me?”

“I promise it won’t.”

“And deep down you don’t blame me?”

“No. I don’t.” He reached up and moved some hair from her face. “We’re going to get through this together.”

She held out her hand in the direction of his drink. He arched a brow and then handed it to her. She took a sip and then sputtered and coughed, causing Jon to laugh. He took the glass back and put it back on the end table. 

“Fuck, that burns going down,” she croaked. 

“You get used to it.” He leaned back and gazed up at her. 

She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair. “You know I love you, right? That I never stopped?”

He nodded. “I do.”

After a while they got up and went to bed, though each knew that sleep wasn’t something that would come easy, not after the day they’d had and all that had happened.


	44. Chapter 44

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit. This is the end. The very end. I can't believe it. I want to thank everyone who supported me and this fic. It was quite a ride, and I am sad to see it go, but it seems almost perfect to end it on the new year. 
> 
> I may at some point write another ending, a future shot of them and how they're doing, but it felt right to end it here and in this way. 
> 
> Thank you everyone. 
> 
> P.S. Due to a troll who seems to have a personal vendetta against me, I've disabled anonymous commenting. Sorry.

Sandor watched Sansa putter from room to room, starting on one task only to abandon it for another. She was a bundle of nervous energy, and he knew that she wouldn’t fully relax until Jon arrived later that afternoon. 

After the fifth time she’d attempted to clean the kitchen from breakfast, Sandor put his coffee down and patted the chair next to him at the counter. “Little bird, why don’t you take a seat. You’ve been attempting to wash that pan for the past fifteen minutes.”

Sansa looked at him. “What?”

Sandor chuckled and patted the seat again. “Sit.”

She sighed, dropped the dish rag in the sink and leaned against the sink. “I’m all over the place, aren’t I?”

“You are. You’re worried.”

She nodded. “I am. I can’t help it. This is it, Sandor. It’s go time. I’m just afraid something is going to fuck it all up and Jon isn’t going to come or one of his men has figured out what we’re doing – or the Lannisters have or this new organization – there are just so many things that could go wrong. And I hate that I’m here and not with him in case it does.”

“Do you think Jon can’t handle himself?”

“No, that’s not it at all. I know he can, but…but what if something changes his mind? Or what if this new mob boss does something that prevents him from coming? What if he’s hurt? What if—”

“What if, what if, what if,” Sandor grumbled. “You’re going to drive yourself nuts with the what ifs.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Sansa muttered, a bit irritably. 

“You’re worried about things that you can’t control. Whatever happens now – if he comes or if he stays – you’ll have to deal with it.”

Without a word, Sansa pushed away from the sink and marched out of the house, no doubt heading down to the beach. 

Sandor sighed. He knew better than to follow her. Little Bird needed time to process. He was concerned though, how she’d handle it when she learned he wouldn’t be following her and Jon when it was time to make a run for it. 

xxxxxxxxx

Daenerys Targaryen set his warehouse on fire. Jon knew it was her because she’d tucked a card with her name on it at the front gate. 

Now, in the midst of still dealing with the fallout of Arya, and planning to leave the business that very night, there was this to deal with. 

The cops were going to want to ask questions. Jon knew they weren’t stupid – where there was a random fire to his warehouse, there was a mob war going on. Mob wars meant people were going to be killed and property was going to be damaged. The cops were going to be all over this, watching him, watching his men, wanting to find any way they could to pin him with something in the hopes they could pin him with a lot more. 

He was in the middle of a meeting with his men, laying out a plan, when Sansa called. He let it go to voicemail. 

xxxxxxxxx

Sansa rubbed her forehead and tossed her phone to the sand when she got Jon’s voicemail. She was wound tighter than a drum, and had been in the weeks leading up to this day. Everything had to be planned perfectly with no room for error and she, Jon, and Sandor had planned for every contingency. They were armed with passports and other various IDs complete with fake names. They had money – in cash – and new phones. They’d even planned how much clothing they’d take with them. Everything else would be left behind. They even had new cars; it was what Sandor and Sansa had been getting while in Ogunquit. 

Sansa just couldn’t seem to rid herself of the feeling that something was going to go wrong. 

That Jon would change his mind. 

And she kept wondering what she would do if he did. 

Part of her wanted to say she’d go anyway. This business would kill them both if they stayed, and she wanted somewhat of a normal life – even if that didn’t include Jon. She feared still that she’d end up like her mother if she did stay and something happened to Jon. Or that she’d dive in deeper into the belly of the beast to keep Jon safe and end up killing more people the way she killed Arya. 

That was something that would never leave her, no matter how far away they went. 

Then there was the other part of her. The part that thought she’d stay because she couldn’t leave Jon again. For better or worse she loved him. And she always would. 

She also knew that if she did stay, she would do her level best to get him to leave. She had to. Because according to the test she took that morning, she was pregnant. 

xxxxxxxx

“You can’t possibly be thinking of leaving now,” Edd hissed as Jon stuffed a duffel bag with some clothes. These were just for show. He already had the essentials packed and they were with Sansa at the Quiet Isle. 

Jon zipped up the bag and turned to look at his friend and, unbeknownst to Edd, the new head of the Stark organization. “I have to, Edd. I need to see my wife. I need to tell her what’s going on and I need to get her to come home.”

“She’ll be fine at the house for a few days with Sandor, Jon.”

“He’s not exactly that up to par yet, Edd.”

“She’ll be a lot safer there than here, don’t you think? You have things to take care of here. Things that I…” Edd hung his head. “I feel ill-equipped to handle right now. Tormund was your right hand man, not me.”

God. That was not what Jon wanted nor needed to hear even as he knew that it was true. He had no doubt that Edd would learn and learn fast under his tutelage, but after Jon walked out that door tonight, Edd would be on his own. Fed to the sharks. It would be sink or swim time and he rather felt as though he was sending his friend to the gallows. 

_Can I do this?_ he wondered. _Can I leave them all behind like this? If I just got them through this mess…_

No. 

Because this was the nature of the business. There would always be one more thing to take care of. If it wasn’t the Lannisters, then it was the Targaryens. And then there would be another one after them and it would never end. Never. And in the process he’d have to deal with the constant fear that Sansa could be killed. Or that she’d leave him again. 

“Listen, we came up with a plan. Do you remember it?”

Edd nodded. 

“That’s all you need to do right now. I’m sure it’ll even keep for a day or two until I get back, okay?”

Edd sighed and nodded, looking as though he was steeling himself for action. 

It would be too much if he hugged the man. So, instead, Jon slapped him on the back and said, “I’ll see you in a couple days. Try not to stress too much.”

Edd nodded and followed Jon to the door. “You’re right. I can do this. We have a plan, and now I just need to follow it.”

“Exactly.”

Jon stepped outside and then onto the front porch. He felt a lump in his throat growing. This was the house he’d practically grown up in. This was the house he’d met Sansa in. This was the house he and Sansa had lived in as husband and wife. There would be another house, but it wouldn’t be this house. This house that held so many memories, both good and bad. Down by the lake was where she’d been shot. Where Sandor and Grenn had been shot. This was the house where Arya had killed Grenn and Tormund and had tried to kill him and Sandor. 

This was the house in which Arya had been killed. 

Perhaps it was time to let it all go after all. A fresh start. That’s what he and Sansa needed. 

Jon held up a hand in a quick wave and then made his way to the car. Don’t look back, he thought as started down the driveway. Keep your eyes forward to the future. 

Tears stung his eyes nonetheless when he pulled out onto the road on his way to the Quiet Isle. He was leaving Winterfell. This was it. Forever. 

_Thank you, Ned, for all that you did for me_ , he thought as he drew closer and closer to the Winterfell line. _It was pretty fucked up to get a kid like me involved in this madness, but if it hadn’t been for you and Robb, I never would have met Sansa. And she is the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m going to take care of her, Ned. I’m going to keep her safe. And I’m going to love her, which is a lot. When we have a son, I’ll be sure to name him after you._

With that thought, his heart was considerably lighter as he made his way past the town line. 

xxxxxxxxxx

Headlights beamed through the kitchen windows and Sansa leapt from the table where she and Sandor had been playing cards. She ran outside without a word and ran down the stairs. 

He was here! He hadn’t changed his mind. They were going to leave!

Jon was barely out of the car before Sansa had launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck and holding him tight. “Jon,” she nearly sobbed. “I was so worried. I was so worried you’d changed your mind, especially when you didn’t answer your phone when I called and texted—”

“I saw you called, sweetheart, I’m sorry. I was in a meeting with my men about the Targaryens.”

Sansa pulled back and looked at him. “Did something happen?”

He sighed. “She set fire to the warehouse. It was a mess. I had to talk to the cops…she left me a card so I was sure to know who did it.”

“Jesus,” she whispered. 

“I had to come up with a plan.”

She looked at him searchingly. “Oh?” She sounded worried. 

“I had to do something for Edd, Sansa. He’s not happy about me leaving tonight. He’s…well, he’s nervous.”

She nodded and played with the fabric of his shirt at his shoulder. “You thought about staying, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “But I’m here. And I’m going.”

“Are you sure? Are you one hundred percent sure?”

“Ninety-ten.”

“I don’t want you to regret this, Jon. I don’t want you to resent me—”

“We’re heading toward a future where we can start a family and keep them safe without guards and guns. I won’t resent you for that ever, Sansa.”

“I love you,” she whispered. 

“I love you,” he whispered back and kissed her. He smiled as he framed her face with his hands. “You ready to go?”

“Yes,” she said and nodded, though heard the crack of emotion in her voice. He had a hard time leaving the house in Winterfell, but this was the house Sansa would have a hard time leaving. 

Hand-in-hand, the pair trudged up to the house and found Sandor inside, duffel bag in hand. He looked grim. 

“Sandor’s ready,” Sansa said with a laugh. 

“Little Bird…Jon…” Sandor began. 

Jon saw the look of regret and sadness on his face and knew: he wasn’t coming with them. 

“Sandor?” Sansa said softly. 

“I’m not going with you, Little Bird.”

Sansa’s eyes welled up in tears. “What do you mean? Why?”

“Because the last thing you need is me hanging around you and Jon while you’re trying to start your new life. I’m baggage. Unnecessary baggage.”

“You’re not unnecessary to me!” Sansa exclaimed. 

“Sansa, Little Bird… this is for the best. Remember how you wanted me to find someone to love who would love me back?”

Sansa nodded, tears streaming down her face. 

“That’s what I’m going to do,” Sandor said softly. “I want a happy ending for myself after all.”

“Where you going to go?” Jon asked, squeezing Sansa’s hand. 

“Not sure. Maybe California. I wouldn’t mind not having to deal with snow in the winter,” Sandor said with a chuckle. He held out a hand to Jon and Jon let go of Sansa’s hand to shake it. 

“Take care of her and treat her right. If you don’t, I’ll find out and kick your ass,” Sandor said. 

Jon laughed. “I have no doubt you would somehow just know.”

Sandor released his hand and looked at Sansa who was just looking at him with tears still running down her face. “Little Bird,” his voice cracked. 

Sansa launched herself at him, hugging him tight. “I’ll never forget you.”

“Sansa,” he managed to say, but then he was pushing her away. He picked up his duffel bag and wiped at his eyes that now had tears in them. He looked at her, studied her, and he opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something. But then he snapped it shut. Then muttered, “Fuck it”, and left. 

She broke down in tears and Jon drew her into his arms and cradled her close. She cried for a bit and then pushed away from him and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shit. “Okay. We need to go.”

“Sure you want to do it now and not in the morning?”

She shook her head. “I’m sure. I’m too afraid something will stop us if we wait.”

Jon nodded. “Fair enough.”

So, the plan began. They grabbed what they’d agreed to take, including their new phones, and headed out to the new car parked in the garage. It had a Washington State license plate already, for that, for now, was their new destination. 

Jon pulled the car out of the garage while Sansa went back to the house to shut off the lights. She stood in the kitchen, her gaze straying to the table. She and Jon never did get a chance to christen it again after having been reunited, but there was another table out there just waiting for them. And another house. A house they’d fill with children and new memories and plans. 

Most of all they’d be safe. 

And, Sansa was determined – they’d be happy. 

At the threat of more tears, Sansa turned, shut the door behind her and ran to the car where Jon was waiting for her without looking back. She leaned over and kissed him before he started off again. He grinned at her, the kind of grin that told her that despite how hard it was to leave their past behind, and what an epic past it had been, he was excited for their future. 

So was she. 

Biting her lip, she reached over as Jon began to drive, and placed his hand over her stomach. “I have some news…”

**The End**


End file.
